how to receive data from BLE and read from COM port of my laptop?

[DannyLuo]

Hello guys,

I'm pretty new about embedded development. I want to transfer data by BLE (probably UART?) and then read from COM port of my win10 laptop. Can you give me a direction about it?

Currently, I have a nrf52840 Dongle, and read some examples inside SDK 16:

examples\ble_peripheral\ble_app_uart

examples\peripheral\usbd_cdc_acm

examples\peripheral\usbd_ble_uart

but none of them compatible with PCA10059 :(

[Simon]

If you want to transfer data from the nrf52840 Dongle to a computer you will need a USB-to-serial converter, check out this link for more information. The reason for this is because there is no UART to USB bridge on the nRF52840 Dongle like there is on the nRF52840 DK.

If you want to make an example compatible with the Dongle, you should check out the nRF52840 Dongle Programming Tutorial and the sections "Adapt a simple example (without SoftDevice)" and "Adapt a BLE example (with SoftDevice) and program it using nRF Connect Programmer".

I would recommend you to buy an nRF52840 DK if your project is large since it enables you to debug your application. Read this link to get an understanding of why it's not possible to debug on the nRF52840 Dongle.

Best regards,

Simon

[DannyLuo]

Thanks Simon. If I init a ble_uart service and a usbd_cdc_acm service in the program, then manually invoke app_usbd_cdc_acm_write() with the data I received from ble. Will it work?

Or I do need a physical UART-to-USB bridge no matter how the program is written?

[Simon]

I want to correct the statement I made earlier:

"If you want to transfer data from the nrf52840 Dongle to a computer (over UART) you will need a USB-to-serial converter"

However, you can send data from the Dongle to the computer through a virtual USB COM port. Use the USB CDC ACM Example. Check the answer given by Jørgen Holmefjord in this thread. 

Follow the steps in the Dongle tutorial to adapt the CDC ACM example for the nRF52 Dongle.

Best regards,

Simon