Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

Bjørn Kvaale — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 12:20:48 GMT

Hi Manuel,

Thanks for that! This could be very useful for anyone else facing the same issues you have faced.

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

Bjørn Kvaale — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 12:20:10 GMT

Hi Manuel,

Sorry for the delayed response. Like I mentioned in the last comment, the bug lies with the softdevice used in nRF Connect for Desktop. You should be able to use the RSCS example from sdk 15.1 running in a central & a peripheral role.

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

manumonti — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 09:03:16 GMT

Hi ntn,

I have just develop this application for nRF52840 PDK (PCA10056). This is a extended advertisements scanner that simply prints by serial port the advertisements that it captures.

github.com/.../NRF52840-Beacon_Scanner

I hope it helps,

Manuel Montenegro

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

Bjørn Kvaale — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 08:25:22 GMT

Nope, the problem is with nrf connect for desktop. It is currently using the s132 v3.1 softdevice, whereas extended advertising is only supported in the v6/6.1 softdevice.

I would take a look at the RSCS central example. Flash the peripheral RSCS to one 52840 & the central example on the other.

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

manumonti — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 08:22:51 GMT

Thank you, Bjørn,

I have the same questions that ntn. Is this a bug in 52840 firmware? In that case, Will there be a new version of the firmware with this bug fixed?

Is there any example for nRF52840 PDK where I can see the full advertising name of RSCS and extended advertisements in general? An extended advertisements scanning application for nRF52840 can be useful in order to test the new support for extended advertising. Also, this example can be useful in order to see how the new scanning module (introduced in SDK v15.1.0) works.

Thank you,

Manuel Montenegro

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

ntn — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 05:37:48 GMT

Bjørn, thanks for confirming. It feels strange to me that 52840 dongle/DK board cannot scan RSCS extended advertising data. Is this a bug in 52840 dongle firmware, or is this feature not supported in SDK 15.1.0? Is there any other example I can use to flash 52840 DK board to make scanning work? My goal is to have 2 devices from Nordic utilizes Bluetooth 5 extended advertising to be able to send more than 200 bytes. Thank you.

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

Bjørn Kvaale — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:41:02 GMT

I have tested the extended advertising on the running speed & cadence application (RSCS) from sdk 15.1 with a 52840 v1.0.0 DK. On the scanning side, I tested with nRF Connect for iOS with my iPhone 8 (which supports high speed 2 Mbps). I know for a fact that the iPhone X supports multiple features from Bluetooth 5, including extended advertising, data length extensions, high throughput mode (2 MBit/s). I believe the same is the case for the iPhone 8. The iPhone X does not support long range coded phy at the moment unfortunately.

It might be that both the iPhone 8 & X Bluetooth chips support extended advertising, but the API does not support it at the moment.

I have also tested with the 52840 dongle using the BLE app from nRF Connect for Desktop & was unable to scan for the RSCS when ble_adv_extended_enabled in advertising_init() was set true.

When the bool was set false, I was able to see the shortened advertising name on both nRF Connect for iOS & nRF Connect for Desktop.

I do not know if any Android devices have HW that supports these Bluetooth 5 features or if it is only API changes that need to be implemented to get this working.

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

ntn — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 21:12:33 GMT

Has anyone been able to test/sniff extended advertisement package? I.e. with certain phone, PC with nRF Connect, or some other special device? I used nRF Connect 2.5.0 on PC and use PCA10040 as scanner but cannot find rsca device. If I set init.config.ble_adv_extended_enabled = false; then rsca device can be scanned in nRF Connect. Maybe PCA10056 is required?

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

PeterLeicht — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:55:13 GMT

Thank you Manuel, this truely helps me, so I know the problem is most certainly on our mobile devices, because the Samsung S8 and S9 show that they only support High Speed from the BT 5 features.

RE: Extended Advertising with SDK 15.1 seems not to work

manumonti — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:45:53 GMT

Hi PeterLeicht.

I have the same issue with Samsung Galaxy S8 with Android 8.0 Oreo and Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 (both of them with Bluetooth 5).

I think I know the reason of this: If I open nRF Connect app and open the menu -> Device information, the following info is shown:

Extended advertisement supported: NO.

Maximum advertising data length: 31.

I read in some place that manufacturers can say that their smartphones is Bluetooth 5 compatible just with High speed (PHY 2M) support. It's not necessary Long Range, Periodic advertisement or Extended Advertisement support. In my opinion, this is unfair.

I'm just looking for some way to sniff extended advertisement with another PCA 10056 (some example in the SDK could be perfect). If you know how to do, i will be greatful.

Sincerely,

Manuel Montenegro