RedBear nano v2 as Dongle

[mrmrtowers]

Hello, Is it possible to use a RedBear V2 with the DAPlink as a Bluetooth dongle, apparently, the DAPlink can function as a USB-UART bridge. I'm new to SoC and am trying to use the Redbear to connect nRF52832 powered smartwatches to a Raspberry Pi.

[awneil]

mrmrtowers said:

I'm new to SoC

What do you mean by that? 

"SoC" simply stands for "System on Chip" ...

The DAPLink is a Redbear product - so you'd have to contact them for support with that. In particular, whether it would work with RPi

If it does, indeed, give you a USB-to-UART bridge (which is entirely feasible and commonplace), then this project would be no different to just using a separate USB-to-UART link; eg, an FTDI cable.

So you'd have to write code on the RPi to talk to a serial port, and code on the module to be controlled via the UART.

[mrmrtowers]

Sorry by new I mean that I do not have much experience programming MCUs. I am attempting to remove the smartphone out of the connection between smartwatch and online application. So I want to transfer information from the smartwatch to the raspberry pi through the redbear. Unfortunately their support is not great. The redbear product uses an nRF52832. Also I would like to eventually use bluetooth 5 which no RPI supports at the moment, and the RPI 3B+ is not available in South Africa yet. 

[awneil]

mrmrtowers said:

I do not have much experience programming MCUs.

So why not just get a BLE dongle which is supported on the RPi - so that it will just work with the native support?

[mrmrtowers]

I want to gain experience! And up until Nordic released their Bluetooth 5 dongle (recently) there were no alternatives. I had asked around on the forum before. I'd like to have the options to improve my system as I become more knowledgeable in the field. This is a postgrad project at Uni.

[awneil]

Hmm ... jumping straight into advanced stuff like BLE isn't really a great way to start learning how to use microcontrollers!

That's like learning to drive on a 6-axle articulated truck!!

mrmrtowers said:

I had asked around on the forum before

On which forum?

Remember that this is a forum for developers doing the inner workings of BLE devices - so not really the place to find end-user products! An RPi forum would probably be a better place to ask that sort of thing...

[mrmrtowers]

Yeah its a bit of a leap :) thanks for the help. My project was going to start out with me creating a smartwatch using the nRF52832, thankfully I've just gone about bought some from China. Basically, I want to attempt to remove the proprietary nature of them requiring a smartphone and vendor-specific app. I am going to try the bottom driver first and then try and use UART to communicate between the watch and the RPi through the Redbear.

[awneil]

I would suggest that a better way to achieve that goal is to use the high-level GATT support in an OS like Linux, Android, Windows, or whatever - rather than getting bogged-down with all the low-level implementation details and constraints of a microcontroller.

On a microcontroller, you will still have to understand all the high-level GATT stuff anyhow.

[mrmrtowers]

Okay cool thanks! I will check it out