Connecting the nRF9160DK to the nRF52833 over Bluetooth

[RodWatt]

Hi,

I would like to set up a couple of boards communicating over Bluetooth; I was hoping someone could provide some pointers.

I would like to connect the nRF9160DK to the nRF52833DK. 

I have programmed the nRF52 on the nRF9160DK with the HCI UART code and the nRF9160 with the LTE_BLE_Gateway code. 

Is this correct?

What should I program the nRF52833 with?

Thanks,

Rod

[Øyvind]

Hello Rod, 

The LTE_BLE_Gateway sample, or LTE Sensor Gateway sample, is designed to be used with the Thingy:52. It will look for Thingy (name or service UUID) and expect to find Thingy services. Your best chance is to configure the LTE Sensor Gateway sample to connect with e.g. Bluetooth Peripheral LBS

Kind regards,
Øyvind

[RodWatt]

Hi Øyvind,

Thank you for your reply. So, just to clarify.

1. The LTE_BLE_Gateway code is designed to run with the Thingy52 (or '91 I assume) only

2. If I want want to connect the nRF9160DK to the nRF5233DK I should use the BT Peripheral LBS code. Do I use that on both systems? i.e on both the nRF9160DK and the nRF5233DK

I'm having problems building the LTE_BLE_Gateway code for the nRF9160DK; please could you send me the merged.hex file for this board? I will try and get a Thingy52 to test.

Thanks,
Rod

[Øyvind]

RodWatt said:

Ok, that worked, thanks. I was able to build and flash "at_client". 

That's good news!  

RodWatt said:

When I tried to build "lte_ble_gateway", the code is looping continually. 

 I'm not sure I'm following, the output that you have attached looks good. Can you please elaborate?

Thank you!

Kind regards,
Øyvind

[RodWatt]

Hi Øyvind,

I have captured the terminal output below. Its reporting it can't find an LTE Link and them seems to reboot. 

As I have just got this working, I have not set up the server side (nfcloud etc) I guess that's what causing the failure? Sorry, when I saw this initially I thought it was not finding a bootable image or similar. 

As I'm not interested in writing to the cloud, I just want to get BLE working between the boards, I have commented out the code in main as below

	buttons_leds_init();
	ble_init();

	work_init();
//	cloud_init();
//	modem_configure();
//	cloud_connect(NULL);

	while (true) {
//		nrf_cloud_process();
//		send_aggregated_data();
		k_sleep(K_MSEC(10));
		k_cpu_idle();

This has enabled me to connect the nRF9160Dk to Thing52, I'm seeing this.

SPM: NS image at 0xc000
SPM: NS MSP at 0x2002bae0
SPM: NS reset vector at 0x1245d
SPM: prepare to jump to Non-Secure image.
*** Booting Zephyr OS build v2.3.0-rc1-ncs1  ***
Bluetooth Receiver Demo Started
Initializing Bluetooth..
Bluetooth ready
Scanning...
Device found: e0:54:b8:7a:61:9d (random)
Connected: e0:54:b8:7a:61:9d (random)
Orientation: 2

So, I'm now back to my initial problem of connecting the nRF52833DK to the nRF9160DK

Regards,

Rod

[Øyvind]

Hi Rod, 

I haven't been able to look much into your case, however, things are starting to normalize in the support department and that will leave more time to help you.

Kind regards,
Øyvind

[RodWatt]

Hi Øyvind,

That would be great, thank you. (Since we talked, I modified some of the code on the Sensor gateway example so I could get an nRF52833 board to connect over BLE, I didn't get as far as sending data )

I have also bought an NRF52840 dongle which seems to be a good fit for me.

So, ideally I would like to be able to send sensor data from a sensor connected to the nRF52840 board (for example, a simple temperature sensor connected over I2C) back to the nRF9160DK.

Any pointers you could provide would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Rod 

[Øyvind]

Hi Rod, 

Sorry for the lack of answers, it's just been a busy week. 

I've tested with nRF52840DK and nRF52833DK, running respectively Central HIDS and Peripheral HIDS Keyboard. Those work perfectly together. However, I have not been successful in running the Central HIDS on the nRF9160DK. Will keep testing and get back to you. 

There has been an ongoing discussion regarding BLE and NCS in this Git thread, please read through this as well.

RodWatt said:

I have also bought an NRF52840 dongle which seems to be a good fit for me.

Yes, this should work fine, just remember to use nRF52840dongle_nrf52840. 

Kind regards,
Øyvind

[RodWatt]

Hi Øyvind,

Thanks for your feedback and support, much appreciated. I have hooked up the dongle to and external debugger and UART but am not getting any Printf() output, I have opened a separate ticket.,

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/64627/no-uart-output-from-printf

Once I have this working, I can try the code you mentioned

Thanks,
Rod

[Øyvind]

Hi Rod, 

Here's an update from my part. I was able to get the HIDS examples to run. 

From lte_ble_gateway copy the overlay file to the central_hids folder.

In central_hids/prj.conf add the following lines:

CONFIG_BT_H4=y

CONFIG_BT_WAIT_NOP=y

CONFIG_MAIN_STACK_SIZE=8192

Compile for nRF9160dk_nrf9160ns and program the central_hids to nRF9160DK.

Compile for nRF9160dk_nrf52840 and program the hci_uart to nRF9160Dk (remember to switch 5 on the board to nRF52)

 

And on the nRF52833DK program the peripheral_hids_keyboard sample.

Let me know how it works for you

Kind regards,
Øyvind

[RodWatt]

Hey Øyvind,

That worked!!!!!! Excellent, thank you. So, when I press button 1 on the nRF52833 I send "hello" to the nRF9160DK. 

I recompliled this targeting the nRF52840 Dongle and this also worked! Unfortunately, I am still unable to see any output from the dongle but when I press the button on the dongle I see "hello" on the nRF9160DK. 

Thanks again for your support,

Regards,
Rod