Using pre-certified 3 party modules with ESB and possibly BLE

[Asbjorn]

Hi

I am looking to use a pre-certified modules for meshing.

However BLE Mesh have some rather big limitations for the size of network/bandwidth i have in mind and
I have previously used ESB with the NRF24L01 in a network with hundreds of units with great success.

This is going to be a commercial product so my questions, to which i cannot find an answer, is:

1. Can i use ESB with 3 party pre-certified modules without further certification?

2. Can i use BLE and ESB (time slottet) using pre-certified modules without further certification?

3. Is there any license fees attached when using NordicSemi's ESB protocol?

Also correct me if i am wrong, as i currently understand the qualification and certification process for a BLE product is:

1. FCC, CE, NCC ,... Certification is for the radio in regards to EMC and band regulations.

2. BT. QDID qualification is a Bluetooth software stack QA/CA. that in nrf52x's cases follows the SoftDevice.

I thank you greatly for any help in answering my questions.

[Simonr]

Hi Asbjorn

1. Only if you are using 2Mbps mode. In 1Mbps mode you have to qualify it for 15.249 and not 15.247 because of the bandwidth being under 5dB.
2. No, here you will most likely need to certify it by further testing and so on.
3. No license fees.
4. The bluetooth certification process is mainly that your design has to be qualified, but you should be able to point to our QDID to make this process quicker and easier (in addition to CE, FCC and so on).

Best regards,

Simon

[Asbjorn]

Thanks for the support. I am sure more questions will appear diving into the rather regulated world