Can nRF51822 Bluetooth Smart Beacon Kit Advertise Battery Level?

[baskan1]

Hi there,

I am quite new to BLE. I am about to buy a nRF51822 Bluetooth Smart Beacon Kit. But before that I would like to be sure if I am able to advertise battery level on beacon kit (after programming it somehow). I read all nrf51822 spec. But could not see anything such as on-chip battery monitoring hardware.

And if i would like to design a costom beacon which can able to advertise battery level, I should connect battery to ADC pins (and a separate ref. voltage) I suppose, since there is no hardware support internall? Am I right?

Could you please confirm that nRF51822 smart beacon kit is capable of transmitting is battery level.

Thank you very much.

[Stefan Birnir Sverrisson]

Hi

There are two options on measuring the battery voltage with the nRF51, either with the ADC, or with the power-fail comparator, see nRF51 Series Reference Manual v3.0, section 12.1.9.

The Beacon kit is tailored at sending beacons. If you intend to develop something more than just sending beacons, then I would recommend to purchase the nRF51 DK, which is much more flexible kit, still for a reasonable price.

But yes, both the nRF Beacon kit and the nRF51 DK kit can advertise battery level. There are various ADC examples available on Nordic's Github page. Use them to sample the battery level, then you update the advertising packet content with the battery level information.