pc-ble-driver

RE: pc-ble-driver

tesc — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 14:34:11 GMT

Hi,

I am afraid I do not happen to know the details, but it seems to me that branch may be part of the new release, yes. (=

Regards,
Terje

RE: pc-ble-driver

Christian Waldmann — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 14:30:30 GMT

If it is the same as in "consolidate-sd-apis" branch in github, then life will be easy in future. The 4 supported apis are already showing up...

Keep on going. Thanks in advance.

RE: pc-ble-driver

Frank — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 14:24:40 GMT

Hi Terje,

Highly appreciated, thanks!

Frank

RE: pc-ble-driver

tesc — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 14:22:00 GMT

Hi,

I can confirm that we are working on fixing as many as possible of the known issues, for the upcoming pc-ble-driver release, including stability issues. (Which may give some explanation to why it is taking so long; we are not only adding support for API level 6.)

Regards,
Terje

RE: pc-ble-driver

tesc — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 14:08:24 GMT

Hi,

Yes, I agree the SDK 15 patch in v2.3.2 is confusing. It is for a special release of SDK 15.0 that includes the connectivity application for USB on the nRF52840. (In particular, for the nRF52 Dongle.) It still uses the s132 v3.1.0. The download path for the special release, http://developer.nordicsemi.com/.pc-tools/sdk/nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_743b4d0.zip , is found in bootstrap_sd_api_v3_usb.sh. However, that SDK version and patch is probably NOT what you are looking for...

Dates and plans for future releases is not public information, and so it cannot be shared in this public thread. Usually you should contact our sales representative for your area, for roadmap and release schedule related questions. If you do not know who that is you can create a private ticket and ask. In this case however, given the circumstances, if you create a private ticket I may be able to give some information directly.

Regards,
Terje

RE: pc-ble-driver

Frank — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 14:02:00 GMT

Hi Chris,

I understand your frustration very well, although the Nordic PC BLE driver is a great concept, it is hard to find a baseline that works properly. It also took me a few iterations before getting my implementation to work without facing build and operational issues.

My understanding is that Nordic is working on it to come up with a reliable baseline in the near future... .

Currently, I'm working on the Zephyr HCI_UART approach to use the Nordic HW only for BLE connectivity (BLE Controller).

So far I'm very satisfied with the result. Especially the API is less Nordic oriented and more BlueZ that is less narrow and has more implementations/bindings in different SW stacks.

As I'm in favour of C++ as programming language it opens the way to use C++ frameworks like QT Bluetooth.

Only pay attention to this possible issue, https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-71727, should you move to Qt or implementations based on the BlueZ stack.

Not sure what C# offers...

Nevertheless I wish the Nordic PC BLE driver issues will be solved soon or at least a stable baseline for development is deployed by Nordic.

Best regards,

Frank

RE: pc-ble-driver

Christian Waldmann — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 13:38:06 GMT

I am lost tin the chaos of your SDK releases and patch files!!!!

The recommended pc-ble-driver v2.3.2 contains already a patch for the SDK15.0, but this patch is reported a broken when applied.

Trying the most active pc-ble-branch "feature/consolidate-sd-apis" refers to "nRF5_SDK_15.2.0_fdc124d/components/softdevice/s132v3/headers/ble.h ...", a SDK that is not avalable for public

Trying the master branch, at least the patch can be applyed, but the projects have errors: "pca10040\ser_s132v3_hci\ses\ble_connectivity_s132v5_hci_pca10040.emProject" has a linker error with overlapping code segments.
"pca10040\ser_s132v3_hci\ses\ble_connectivity_s132_hci_pca10040.emProject" has a linker error with overlapping code segments

Only the "pca10040\ser_s132v3_hci\ses\ble_connectivity_s132v3_hci_pca10040.emProject" compiles and links without error!!!

Please tell me when the pc-ble-branch "feature/consolidate-sd-apis" is available, even for beta testing.

RE: pc-ble-driver

Frank — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 15:11:01 GMT

Hi Chris,

I really love the concept of the BLE PC driver by Nordic especially it eliminates the tough work of doing yourself the serialization work of the uart driver, however it seems a lot of (code api) mismatches are still in place to use the code as is easily or at least the packages. So I hope soon a stable release can be deployed by Nordic.

IMHO it should be part of the Nordic Development SDK.

FYI

Currently I'm investigating how well the Zephyr HCI UART solution is to use the Nordic HW just as a BLE Controller. So far good experiences with this concept except a few minor issues that have workarounds.

(https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/22194/read-or-change-nrf51-mac-address-on-zephyr/156634#156634)

BTW I love to use QT C++, although C# is a great programming language. Happy coding to.

Have a nice weekend,

Frank

RE: pc-ble-driver

Christian Waldmann — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 15:01:17 GMT

Hi Frank

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I will have a closer look to your way to success and hope I can reach also my goals...

Happy coding
Chris

RE: pc-ble-driver

Frank — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 14:21:45 GMT

Hi Christian,

See also my experiences with the PC BLE Driver described in this topic .

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/39173/no-valid-bidirectional-uart-communication-between-the-imx6-ul-s-evk-board-running-the-nordic-pc-ble-driver-and-the-nrf52-dk-running-the-nordic-connectivity-132-uart-software

However everything is for v5 and with patches.

Best regards,

Frank

RE: pc-ble-driver

tesc — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 13:46:39 GMT

Hi,

Unfortunately I do not have any overview of the state of master at the moment, but in general only the production releases has gone through proper testing and we do not provide any guarantees for the quality of any non-release snapshot. Current work on v6.1.0 support and next pc-ble-driver release is done in private branches.

Questions regarding roadmaps and future releases are handled by our sales representatives, or in rare cases in private tickets here through DevZone (and this is a public thread). If you do not know who is our sales representative for your area then please open a private ticket or send me a private message and we will let you know.

Regards,
Terje

RE: pc-ble-driver

Christian Waldmann — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 13:25:19 GMT

Thanks for your answer.

What problems are expected when I use the "master" version with sd_api_v5?

Do you have a schedule for the release of the version with sd_api_v6

happy coding

Chris

RE: pc-ble-driver

tesc — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 12:15:41 GMT

Hi,

The newest stable release of pc-ble-driver is currently the one tagged with v2.3.2. It uses API level 3 (s132 v3.1.0). The team is currently working on SoftDevice API level 6 (s132 v6.1.0) support, and this will come in an upcoming release.

Connectivity firmware is found under the pc-ble-driver/hex/ directory, e.g. pc-ble-driver/hex/sd_api_v3/ for the connectivity firmware based on SDK 12.2.0 and s132 v3.1.0. If for some reason you need to modify the connectivity firmware then you must apply the patch file for the connectivity project from the correct SDK version.

For features added between s132 v3.1.0 and s132 v6.1.0 I refer to the "New Functionality" sections of the SoftDevice release notes.

Regards,
Terje