Are pc drivers published to windows update

[Eddi]

Hi

I am evaluating the production of a BLE product and your chip solution looks promising. 

In my case the bluetooth will be connected to PC and it should be recognized as a Bluetooth device without manually installing the pc driver.

I want to know if you publish chip drivers to Windows Update?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/dashboard/publish-a-driver-to-windows-update

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello Eddi,

In my case the bluetooth will be connected to PC and it should be recognized as a Bluetooth device without manually installing the pc driver.

I am not sure that I have understood your intentions correctly. Do you intend to have your device advertise as a Bluetooth device, and have a PC connect to it? Or do you mean to connect the device to the PC using USB, and then have the PC recognize the USB as a Bluetooth device?
In either case, you would have to write your own firmware to the device, so that it will perform whatever functions you intend.

If your device is advertising, and the PC's Bluetooth device is scanning for devices, it will be visible to the PC. If your device is programmed to accept connections, and the PC central requests to connect, then the two will be connected. Whatever happens after that will be as you have programmed your peripheral device to.

I want to know if you publish chip drivers to Windows Update?

Nordic Semiconductor does not publish device drivers to Windows Update, since we do not retail applications of our SoC's.
We are a silicone manufacturer that design and produce the chips that our customers use to create BLE devices.

Please let me know if anything is unclear.

Best regards,
Karl

[Eddi]

Hello Karl Ylvisaker

The BLE chip will be connected to PC through USB port. The PC should be able to recognize it as a bluetooth device without the need to install pc driver. There are many devices that are detected as bluetooth without installing any driver.

Is there any way I can do that with nordic chip?  Any provided tutorial for Windows bluetooth firmware would be helpful.

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello Eddi,

Yes, this is a fairly normal practice - but what will your BLE device be doing?
In order for windows to communicate with your device, windows will need to know what to expect from your device.

If you intend for the device to just be powered by the USB port, that is one thing - but if you intend for the BLE device to receive data that it passes on to Windows, then it will need some kind of program or application running on the windows end, to receive and process the received data. 

I am not familiar with making windows applications, but I found this tutorial by Microsoft that sets up an "advertising watcher". If you combine this with the ble_peripheral beacon example  then you should be able to see the beacons advertisements in your windows application. The important thing there would be to familiarize yourself with the Microsoft Bluetooth Low-Energy API.

Best regards,
Karl

[Eddi]

Hi

Thank you for the explanation.

I will test this.

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Eddi said:

Thank you for the explanation.

No problem at all, Eddi!
Please let me know if you should encounter any nRF issues or questions in the future.

Good luck with your development!

Best regards,
Karl