Beacon and DFU

[Ken A]

I have a product that advertises as a BLE beacon. It can be placed into BLE DFU mode through local actions (a command on the USB serial port).

Is it possible to add services including buttonless DFU so it can be updated without physically touching the board? Or is beacon mode incompatible with BLE services?

I am using SDK version 15.2.0

[Hung Bui]

Hi Ken, 

Could you let me know if you follow any beacon standard ? For example Eddystone ? 
Beacon by definition is simply advertising packet. You can have connectable beacon if you want. When advertise in connectable mode it allows the phone to connect to it and trigger the Buttonless DFU service. 
If it's a requirement to do non-connectable advertising, you can do both, occasionally advertise with connectable mode. For example doing connectable advertising for 10 second every 1 minute. 

[Ken A]

Hi,

The BLE is configured as an iBeacon.

[Hung Bui]

As far as I know there isn't a requirement that when you do iBeacon you need to do non-connectable advertising. So I think you can just do connectable advertising and implement DFU service in the GATT table. 
But be aware that doing connectable advertising draw more current than non-connectable. Check here.

[Ken A]

One more thing. The device operates simultaneously in BLE Central mode (to scan for certain UUID values) and a BLE peripheral (iBeacon mode). Will this affect the ability of peripheral mode to be connectable?

[Hung Bui]

No, it's not. There is a slightly effect of having small period to listen to connect request meaning you don't scan in that period, but it's very small.