Completely disabling bluetooth.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Steph van Schalkwyk — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 01:34:05 GMT

Have there been any new(er) development on this question? I have to turn off the RF - hopefully completely - so the MCU can be used to drive other peripherals. Is this possible? Should I just use another M0?

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

saiteja — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 14:33:59 GMT

hi if i use NRF_RADIO->TASKS_DISABLE = 1; my device going to RESET.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Ole Bauck — Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:14:11 GMT

Are you sure that you actually disconnected (did you get the disconnected event)? And did the stop advertising function return successfully? Remember to always check the return codes.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

ALi — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 19:00:06 GMT

when tow boards (central and peripheral) has connected together, I disconnect and stop advertising but they are still connected and I can send data over NUS.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Ole Bauck — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 13:50:06 GMT

See my answer (an give an upvote if you like). This answer is not correct.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

ALi — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 13:41:33 GMT

NRF_RADIO->TASKS_DISABLE = 1; is output register (__O) and i use S130 and this trick doesn't work for me

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Ole Bauck — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:21:27 GMT

This question is not related to this thread. I suggest that you search for the answer on this forum or make a new question/thread if you don't find the answer.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Thangaraj — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 13:32:51 GMT

Hi Ole, I could not see any difference in power consumption in the following cases,

Connected or Advertsing ->BLE ON 2)Not connected and not advertising

Should we do any other changes to reduce power consumption from Radio, I use S132 and NRF52 target.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Ole Bauck — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 15:26:22 GMT

I reopened this case because the answers are not totally correct.

First: The radio peripheral is blocked by the SoftDevice, so the call NRF_RADIO->TASK_DISABLE = 1 will not have any effect if the SoftDevice is enabled. Worst case it will lead to a hardfault. The peripherals that are used by the SoftDevice and either blocked or restricted can be seen here.

Second: When the SoftDevice is done sending or receiving packets on the radio, it will call NRF_RADIO->TASK_DISABLE = 1, probably this is done automatically with PPI. It will also turn off the radio peripheral with NRF_RADIO->POWER = 0 to additionally save power. When it is going to send a packet it will turn the radio peripheral on and call NRF_RADIO->TASK_ENABLE = 1. Calling NRF_RADIO->TASK_DISABLE = 1in the meantime will not change this.

To know that the radio is off, you have to make sure that you are not in a connection and not advertising. You can disable the SoftDevice also, but this is not necessary.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Ole Bauck — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 15:19:40 GMT

Adding NRF_RADIO->TASK_DISABLE = 1 won't do anything for two reasons: First of all when the SoftDevice is enabled, the Radio registers are not accessible (unless using the Timeslot API), see here. Second the TASK_DISABLE is most likely connected to the END event through something called SHORTS in the RADIO registers. This means that the radio is automatically disabled when a packet is sent or received, meaning it will be disabled most of the time.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Gigel — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 16:11:52 GMT

In addition to Jock Murphy's comment, you might need to add "NRF_RADIO->TASKS_DISABLE = 0;" in function "bluetooth_wake()"... From the specs it is not clear if implementation of the "advertising_start()" also enables the radio task.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Jock Murphy — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 22:40:10 GMT

I think you mean NRF_RADIO->TASKS_DISABLE = 1;

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Anne — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:59:24 GMT

Here are my sleep and wake functions in case anyone else would find them useful.

uint32_t bluetooth_sleep(void)
{
	uint32_t err_code;

	// If connected, disconnect
	if (m_conn_handle != BLE_CONN_HANDLE_INVALID)
	{
		err_code = sd_ble_gap_disconnect(m_conn_handle,  BLE_HCI_REMOTE_USER_TERMINATED_CONNECTION);
		if (err_code != NRF_SUCCESS) return err_code;
	}

	// Stop advertising
	err_code = sd_ble_gap_adv_stop();
	if (err_code != NRF_SUCCESS) return err_code;

	// Disable the radio tasks as scytulip suggested
	// devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../
	NRF_RADIO->TASKS_DISABLE;

	return NRF_SUCCESS;
}

uint32_t bluetooth_wake(void)
{
	uint32_t err_code;

	err_code = advertising_start();
	if (err_code != NRF_SUCCESS) return err_code;

	return NRF_SUCCESS;
}

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Anne — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:53:15 GMT

I finally got a chance to test it and it works fine for me too ^^

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Anne — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 23:28:37 GMT

Thanks for your input guys ^^ I'll most definitely try out your suggestions and will let you know how they work :)

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

John — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 17:07:49 GMT

I think the application timers would be unaffected by disabling and enabling the SD. They rely on SWI0 and RTC1 and those are "open" even when the SD is enabled. I do not know if the critical regions would still work with the SD disabled.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

Anne — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 02:56:59 GMT

I'm using the application timer module. I'm not sure, but I think disabling and reenabling the SD would mess them up. I've also got a critical region which uses sd_critical_region_enter which is called when Bluetooth needs to be active as well as when it needs to be disabled. I could manage these, of course, but it would be nice to know if there's any alternative.

RE: Completely disabling bluetooth.

scytulip — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 04:11:58 GMT

Hi, Anne,

I investigated the code for BLE serialization and found no clue of turning off Bluetooth completely.

However, I tried another solution:

NRF_RADIO->TASKS_DISABLE = 1;

It works! See the Fig.23 in NRF51822 reference manual v2.1, it says "No operations are going on inside the radio and the power consumption is at a minimum." I think this is what you need.

I tried this code,

advertising_start();
nrf_delay_ms(2000);

NRF_RADIO->TASKS_DISABLE = 1;

nrf_delay_ms(2000);
advertising_start();

Then the BLE resumes advertising without any problem.