Sending bulk sensor data to PC via BLE, would BLE UART be the best way?

RE: Sending bulk sensor data to PC via BLE, would BLE UART be the best way?

awneil — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 08:58:53 GMT

[quote userid="82035" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/50376/sending-bulk-sensor-data-to-pc-via-ble-would-ble-uart-be-the-best-way/201082"]should I be able to create a custom service/characteristic[/quote]

Yes. Here's some tutorials showing how to do exactly that:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/short-range-guides/b/bluetooth-low-energy/posts/ble-services-a-beginners-tutorial

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/short-range-guides/b/bluetooth-low-energy/posts/ble-characteristics-a-beginners-tutorial

RE: Sending bulk sensor data to PC via BLE, would BLE UART be the best way?

sxd248 — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 00:02:59 GMT

The famous cat replies to my question! Yeah I have a little experience with microcontrollers, but BLE is completely new territory for me. If I am understanding your response correctly, this is more of a BLE question rather than an NRF52 question? If so, theoretically, should I be able to create a custom service/characteristic and as long as I follow the BLE guidelines, I should be able to whip up a program in my pc(say in python) and read/process the incoming bytes via BLE? I was thinking of using the notification function to send the data(changes in sensor values), but was unsure if that would be less efficient than another way. Sorry for the barrage of questions, and thank you for your time!

RE: Sending bulk sensor data to PC via BLE, would BLE UART be the best way?

awneil — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 22:18:58 GMT

[quote userid="82035" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/50376/sending-bulk-sensor-data-to-pc-via-ble-would-ble-uart-be-the-best-way"] I am very new to the NRF52 environment,[/quote]

Do you have experience with any other microcontroller(s)?

Or BLE in general?

[quote userid="82035" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/50376/sending-bulk-sensor-data-to-pc-via-ble-would-ble-uart-be-the-best-way"] I need to send 5 Kbytes of sensor data as fast as possible[/quote]

Note that BLE is not designed for high speed or high volume data transfer.

If those are your key requirements, are you sure that BLE is the best approach for your solution?

[quote userid="82035" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/50376/sending-bulk-sensor-data-to-pc-via-ble-would-ble-uart-be-the-best-way"]use the BLE UART capabilities to send the data to another NRF52 [/quote]

You don't necessarily need another nRF52.

The whole point of things like BLE is that they are Standard - so not dependent on any particular underlying hardware.

Windows-10 has native BLE support.

[quote userid="82035" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/50376/sending-bulk-sensor-data-to-pc-via-ble-would-ble-uart-be-the-best-way"]and send it to the PC via UART[/quote]

with an nRF52840, you could use USB.