C# PC app development with nRF52840-dongle

[Moshe Baker]

Our purpose is to integrate BLE 5 in our embedded application, and do it quickly.. We basically need to send/receive data with maximum throughput. 

Per thread below, we are planning to use the ble_app_uart on the embedded side.

For developing the PC app side, assume we are using the nRF52840-dongle you recommended in thread below, where can I find a code example in C# for doing this, implementing the NUS profile? I see there is JS/Node.js code of nrf-connect, but this is somewhat distant from our .NET environment.

Also i see in the Android app - nRF Toolbox - there is a UART app. So basically I'm looking for an equivalent C#/Windows code sample.

Does the pc-ble-driver in C++ cover the NUS service?

Spun off from:

Getting started with MBN52832 BLE Module

[Moshe Baker]

Where do I find the connectivity firmware?

[Einar Thorsrud]

The pre-built hex files in the pc-ble-driver repo (here) are not complete or up to date. The easiest is to install pc-ble-driver-py via pip, and find it under <site-packages>\pc_ble_driver_py\hex\sd_api_v5. You can find the "site-packages" folder using 'python -m site'

[Moshe Baker]

Which hex file? I tried them all and always get the same device under Device Manager - "nRF52 SDFU USB (COM10)". Is this the one expected?

[Moshe Baker]

None of these hex files are doing any better. This is very tedious! How can we get more hands on support on getting the pc-ble-driver running?

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

This is the correct place to get pc-ble-driver support (and support for any other nRF product). The error you are seeing match what you see when you use incompatible pc-ble-driver API version and connectivity firmware API version.

Which exact hex file and which exact example file did you try? Just to make sure the basics are working I suggest the following:

• Build the heart_rate_collector examples (using VisualStudio all variants are built in one go)
• Run the nRF Connect BLE app to make sure you have a working connectivity firmware (this will be API version 3).
• Run the API version 3 heart rate collector example like this (replacing the COM port with your number: ".\heart_rate_collector_sd_api_v3.exe COM6"

Then you should see an output similar to this:

λ .\heart_rate_collector_sd_api_v3.exe COM6
Serial port used: COM6
Baud rate used: 1000000
Info: Successfully opened COM6. Baud rate: 1000000. Flow control: none. Parity: none.
Status: 6, message: Target Reset performed
Status: 7, message: Connection active
Scan started
Received advertisement report with device address: 0xF333BF1473AB
Received advertisement report with device address: 0x6A8691EE9176
Received advertisement report with device address: 0xF333723ED24C
Received advertisement report with device address: 0x66E795F64F45
Received advertisement report with device address: 0xF333723ED24C
Received advertisement report with device address: 0x0212DAE12FDF
Received advertisement report with device address: 0x4A7357CC6E17
Received advertisement report with device address: 0xF333723ED24C
Received advertisement report with device address: 0x62F5E2A7602A
Received advertisement report with device address: 0x0212DAE12FDF
Received advertisement report with device address: 0xF333723ED24C
Received advertisement report with device address: 0x6A8691EE9176
Received advertisement report with device address: 0xF333BF1473AB
Received advertisement report with device address: 0x0212DAE12FDF
Received advertisement report with device address: 0xF33365117774

You may not want to use the older API version, but if this works, then you know the basic setup is working. Then you can move on to trying a different API version and making sure you have programmed a corresponding connectivity firmware hex file.