nRF52840 Dongle Versions and boot log

[wyattb]

I am trying to understand why when I connect the nRF52840 Dongle using nRF Desktop I get this message in the log:

2020-02-26T23:12:13.293Z INFO Connectivity firmware version: ble-connectivity 4.1.1+May-07-2019-15-12-18. SoftDevice API version: 3. Baud rate: 1000000.

1. Should it not show ble-connectivity 5.x?
2. Also what version should NRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION be?

I am using SDK nRF5_SDK_16.0.0_98a08e2. The dongle is stamped with PCA10059 board and I assume I should be using S140. I want to use BLE 5.x.

In my project I have these defines, but not sure about NRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION.

"BOARD_PCA10059",
"CONFIG_GPIO_AS_PINRESET",
"INITIALIZE_USER_SECTIONS",
"FLOAT_ABI_HARD",
"NRF52",

"NRF52840_XXAA",

"NRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION=6",

"S140",

"SOFTDEVICE_PRESENT",

"SWI_DISABLE0"

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi,

When using the dongle together with the nRF Connect BLE application, the dongle will be flashed with a connectivity firmware, allowing the application to scan and connect to BLE devices. This log message does not provide any information about the capabilities of the devices itself, it is only related to the API version of the softdevice used in the firmware. The BLE application in nRF Connect depends on the pc-ble-driver-js library, which is not yet updated to use later softdevice APIs, this means that it does not support Bluetooth 5.x features as of yet.

SDK v16.0.0 support softdevice API v7, this should be reflected in the defines in your project. SD API v6 was supported in SDK v15.x.0.

Best regards,
Jørgen

[wyattb]

Can I still use the older softdevice such as pca10056/s140 with the dongle?

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

PCA10056 is the board name for the nRF52840 DK. You can use any production version of the s140 softdevice (6.x.x and 7.x.x) on the dongle. The pca10059 projects in the SDK are designed for running on the nRF52840 Dongle.