Is it possible to maintain ble 5 long range connection in the meanwhile scan using BLE 4 (1Mbps) PHY?

[carlche]

Dear NRF gurus,

We are trying to implement a BLE node to bridge  BLE 5 and BLE 4 - to leverage the long range of BLE 5 in the meanwhile working with the large amount of existing BLE 4 tags.

In our application one requirement is to maintain connection to gateway using BLE 5  coded phy to achieve extended range  while still trying to scan nearby BLE 4 tags using 1Mbps PHY. Is it possible using current SDK 15.3? 

If so, can you please provide any guidelines on how to achieve that? 

Thanks with appreciation,

Carl

[haakonsh]

You can use the Scan library and set the PHY with a call to nrf_ble_scan_params_set.

[carlche]

Thanks for the positive answer. However the answer is too brief and I'm still not clear on the steps involved.

Say 528480 advertises on coded PHY and got Long range connection. Then it starts scanning on 1Mbps PHY (BLE 4). How can we ensure the link is maintained on the coded Phy? Will the SDK soft device currently automatically manage the long range link? 

Thanks

[haakonsh]

Yes, the SoftDevice can maintain up to 20 concurrent links, so a single link is not a problem, regardless of the PHY.