switching beacon mode to pairing/connectable mode without module reset nRF52832

[harshg]

Hello,

I am a newbie and need some help deciding the path to perform the following requirement. Any help is appreciated.

 Requirement:

I have Rigado BMD-350 module currently advertising in beacon mode. 

I would like to switch from beacon mode to connectable BLE mode (pairing mode) when a cell phone comes close to it and would like to connect.

Once connection is established, I would like to receive data from the cell phone and store it. and then close the connection and move back to beacon mode.

BMD-350 comes with BMDware which is out of date and is no longer supported. Instead, I would like to write open source code for nrf52832 (nrf module in BMD-350) to achieve the above requirement.

What is the best path to go about this requirement. Also which soft device is recommended?

Thank you

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

How do you intend to detect that the phone is close? The way I see it, there are (at least) two possible approaches:

1) Always advertise non-connectable, but also scan in between. A phone with a custom app could advertise, and when your nRF detects the advertisement packets it can switch to connectable. This has the downside that scanning is typically less power-efficient, and a custom app is required (may not be an issue).

2) Either alway advertise connectable (should not be a problem), or alternate between advertising non-connectable most of the time and connectable some of the time. Then the phone could connect when the nRF advertises in connectable mode.

Since you are working with an nRF52832, I recomend you use the lastest nRF5 SDK (currently version 16, and SoftDevice S132 version 7.0.1).

[harshg]

Hi,

Thank you for your prompt reply.

If I would like to go with option 2, my question is in beacon mode can I always advertise connectable? 

Also, when the phone would like to connect, what is the best way to pair them so that it connects to one phone and not multiple phones at the same time

I will look in to the recommended version and SoftDevice. Thank you

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

There is no problem always advertising connectable (unless your specific use case requires the advertisements to be non-connectable).

If you want to limit the number of connected phones to maximum one at a time, you can advertise connectable when no phones are connected, and as non-connectable when a phone is connected. If you want to make sure that just one phone is allowed to connect, you can allow a single peer to bond, and advertise using a whitelist after that (whitelist meaning that only the whitelisted peer is allowed to connect). Note that in that case, you need a way to reset the bonding, so that you can explicitly allow a new peer to connect when needed.

[harshg]

Hi Einar,

Spend sometime to go through the SDK examples and learn more abt the GATT architecture.

I am trying the following

make adv connectable in beacon.. adding ble_nus service to it. Once Mobile connects send data to ble_nus service.

In current code, the adv parameter is set to Non_Connectable_non_Scannable

// Initialize advertising parameters (used when starting advertising).
	memset(&m_adv_params, 0, sizeof(m_adv_params));

	m_adv_params.properties.type = BLE_GAP_ADV_TYPE_NONCONNECTABLE_NONSCANNABLE_UNDIRECTED;  
	m_adv_params.p_peer_addr     = NULL; // Undirected advertisement.
	m_adv_params.filter_policy   = BLE_GAP_ADV_FP_ANY;
	m_adv_params.interval        = MSEC_TO_UNITS(MAX_ADV_INTERVAL, UNIT_0_625_MS); // Will use timer to dictate interval due to interleaving
	m_adv_params.duration        = IB_NON_CONN_ADV_TIMEOUT;
	m_adv_params.primary_phy     = BLE_GAP_PHY_1MBPS;

I changed it as follows. I am not able to connect to the device using nRF Connect. I receive a device disconnected error. Please direct right way of doing this

m_adv_params.properties.type = BLE_GAP_ADV_TYPE_CONNECTABLE_SCANNABLE_UNDIRECTED; 

[harshg]

ERROR LOG IN NRF Connect

15:35:24.342

Connecting to device

15:35:24.574

Connected to device F5:C9:78:CF:4D:74

15:35:28.470

Disconnected from device F5:C9:78:CF:4D:74, reason: BLE_HCI_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

This log shows that there is a timeout in nRF Connect app on the peer (central). What happens on the nRF side? A typical reason for seeing a timeout when tweaking nRF code is that an error has happened on the nRF side. Have you debugged on the nRF side to see what is happening? I recommend you test a debug build with logging enabled. In most cases that will point to the error. If not, you need to debug a bit more. (You may want to read An introduction to error handling in nRF5 projects).

[harshg]

I am going through the error handling as you suggested. Meanwhile, I wanted to build the ble_pheripheral_eddystone application in nRF5_SDK_15.3.0_59ac345 which is giving me build error in SES

cannot find ../../../../../../external/micro-ecc/nrf52hf_armgcc/armgcc/micro_ecc_lib_nrf52.a: No such file or directory

I tried the following 2 steps. but error still exists

1) Download and install Windows 32-bit

File: gcc-arm-none-eabi-6-2017-q2-update-win32-sha1.exe (82.57 MB)

https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/developer-tools/gnu-toolchain/gnu-rm/downloads/6-2017-q2-update

2) Run build_all.sh or build_all.bat located in ..\nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a\external\micro-ecc

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

Running build_all.bat will resolve this error, provided the script runs without any problems. Can you copy-paste the output of the script? The error message should let us uknow what you are missing. (One common problem is if you don't have make in your path).

[harshg]

The script window opens and closes in a flash. Not sure how to copy paste the output.

How to add make file in path??

[harshg]

All the sub folders have makefile in them

[harshg]

"micro-ecc not found! Let's pull it from HEAD."
Cloning into 'micro-ecc'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 1086, done.
remote: Total 1086 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 1086
Receiving objects: 100% (1086/1086), 647.94 KiB | 2.85 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (637/637), done.
'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
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'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
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'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
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'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
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'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
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'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
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'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

Please run the script from a command line instead of double-clicking. When you double click it will close like this when there is an error, not giving you time to read it.

It is not the Makefile that should be in your path, it is the make utility. You should get make from somewhere, and put it in your windows path. For instance using Gow, or some other distribution og GNU tools.