Toggle GPIO on Beacon when out of range of Phone?

[Tartheis]

Hello,

I'm just starting to use the nRF Smart Beacon kit.

Is it possible to have the beacon toggle a GPIO on-board when the beacon is out of range of the phone/app?

Also, is a specific compiler needed to create the application .hex file?

I am willing to pay an experienced nRF developer to walk me through re-programming the app on the Smart Beacon.

Email me at [email protected]

Thanks,

Mike

[Simon]

Have you seen the Proximity Application example? That example makes it possible to connect to the phone through nRF Connect, and blink a LED on the board when the phone is out of range.

Regarding compiler, if you are using Keil, it should work fine to use the included Arm/C/C++ Compilers.

What specifically is your goal regarding re-programming the Smart Beacon app? My knowledge is not great about this, but I might be able to help you.

Best regards, Simon

[Tartheis]

Thanks Simon. I've tried to reply a few times now, but something is wrong with this website.

The main goal is to make the Smart Beacon toggle a GPIO on-board when outside the bluetooth range of the phone.

Since I'm new to this dev. hardware, I'm being careful to not break it. Is it necessary to reprogram the application on the smart beacon to achieve the functionality I want?

I've just downloaded Keil. How do I import the source code of the smart beacon? Is this the correct process for converting an edited "main.c" file back into a ".hex" file?

This development is for a consumer product that I believe has a lot of potential in a large market. So far, the Smart Beacon has proven to be the perfect hardware for this. I just need to learn how to make it toggle a GPIO on-board when outside bluetooth range. But I still would like the app to be able to adjust the transmit power.

[Tartheis]

I've managed to use Keil to compile a new application .hex file, but it failed to upload to the Beacon.

Is it possible to just update the beacon application file, or do I have to re-flash the bootloader as well?

[Tartheis]

I've managed to compile a .hex file in Keil. Now I'm trying to create an init file.

I've installed nrfutil through pip and have been attempting to run code that creates the init file:

nrfutil pkg generate --hw-version 51 --sd-req 0x81 --application-version 4 --application app.hex test.zip

I'm pretty sure my SoftDevice version is wrong since I have 7.1, but the list of SoftDevice codes didn't go up that right. And I don't know my application version. Any help here too?

But I receive this error:

AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'iteritems'

[Simon]

I am sorry for the long delay.

If you are planning on a big project I would absolutely recommend you to buy an nRF51 Development Kit, and program it using the debugger included with the kit. Here is a link explaining how to do it. Developing only using the DFU can be a nightmare, as it won't let you debug your code. In addition, you can not upgrade the SoftDevice over the air nor use any SDK versions above SDK 7. Using a DK will make this possible. Here is an informative link regarding this.

I am not sure what causes the error, I will look into it if you choose to continue with that approach (without DK and programmer).

Best regards,

Simon