Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

hkarthik97 — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 11:07:55 GMT

This solution works for me too Thankyou very much for sharing.

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Gerrikoio — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 20:35:49 GMT

I did not get very far with approach shown above.

Anyway, now that I've become more familiar with the SDK and the many BLE and NFC based examples, I thought to have a more thorough review of all the "experimental" examples.

I finally found an experimental example in the BLE central folder which used the t2t_lib and started with this...

I then slowly modified to convert to just a BLE central scanning process and to just to have the NDEF URL part (I had no need for pairing etc.)

Well I am happy to say I now have this working

I believe the problem was caused by parameters missing or not set in the sdk_config file. It is only now that I am more familiar with this file was I able to work out what to change.

There are two Segger Embedded Studio IDE tools that were used to solve the problem. Namely:

1. The CMSIS Configuration Wizard.

This helped quickly identify which parameters were missing in the sdk_confiig file, which then threw up errors in the various library files when ported across.

2. The Project -> Open Solution in Editor option

I found that this was the quickest way to port across library folders and files and to make sure the path to each folder was correct.

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Gerrikoio — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 14:07:38 GMT

Nothing worse than hacking around in circles, so I've returned back to my original error log to see if there is something I missed.

And there is... staring me right in the face... it relates to a driver "nrfx_nfct" and I had not included this file in my project.

So I now included that driver within my project and also I found that there is a setting in sdk_config: NRFX_NFCT_ENABLED which needs to set as this flag is disabled by default for non nfc projects.

But this is now throwing up another error with this macro in nrfx_nfct.h.

/** @brief Macro for creating a timer driver instance. */
#define NRFX_TIMER_INSTANCE(id)                                   \
{                                                                 \
    .p_reg            = NRFX_CONCAT_2(NRF_TIMER, id),             \
    .instance_id      = NRFX_CONCAT_3(NRFX_TIMER, id, _INST_IDX), \
    .cc_channel_count = NRF_TIMER_CC_CHANNEL_COUNT(id),           \
}

My error log tells me the following:

-- Compiling 'nrfx_nfct.c' 1 Error

-- ‘NRFX_TIMER4_INST_IDX’ undeclared here (not in a function); did you mean ‘NRFX_TIMER_INSTANCE’?

-- in definition of macro ‘NRFX_CONCAT_3_’

-- in expansion of macro ‘NRFX_CONCAT_3’

-- in expansion of macro ‘NRFX_TIMER_INSTANCE’

Any suggestions?

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Gerrikoio — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 11:36:33 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion. That was actually the one and only example that came up when searching on the forum. Because it related to t4t I decided not to use for the purposes of writing a NDEF URL and also want to stick with tag type 2 for now.

For now I continue on this path and I am now attempting to build the other way.

As in, start with a working NFC example and add in the BLE elements. This too is proving a troublesome process.

The first build error I get (and all I've done to my code is add in libraries etc.) is that it tells me that it cannot find NRF_ERROR_INVALID_PARAM or NRF_SUCCESS.

It took awhile to figure out why and it relates to the use of SOFTDEVICE_PRESENT in the Preprocessor Definitions. I need to use this definition for BLE.

This in turn relates to the file "nrf_error".

What makes this messy is that there are apparently 2 nrf_error files.

The BLE example use "nrf_error" from "components/softdevice/..." folder while non BLE examples use the one in the "components/drivers_nrf/nrf_soc_nosd" folder.

What I cannot figure out is where in the apps is reference to the correct nrf_error.h file as this appears not to be included in the main.c file as standard.

Any advice as to how best to resolve will be greatly appreciated.

Or should the advice really be that the tag type 2 library is incompatible with BLE softdevice and thus cannot be used.

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Kenneth — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 08:43:59 GMT

I could find this SES example for nRF52832 with BLE and NFC (based on nRF5 SDK v15.2 I believe):
https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/43734/combining-ble-and-nfc-in-nrf52832/171638#171638

Maybe that can be used as reference? I notice it is using the t4t library though, but that should also work.

Best regards,
Kenneth

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Gerrikoio — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 18:12:21 GMT

Thanks for your help so far. YEs I've tried all those options.

I have rechecked over and over the preprocessor options and user include directories and these are all referencing the correct files, because if I change the reference it tells me that it cannot find the file.

No, for some reason when linking everything together it bombs. I am still convinced it has to do with the precompiled t2t_lib file. There must be some simple setting in the SES compiler that clears this problem.

There has to be someone out there that got this working before. It is now getting very frustrating.

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Kenneth — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 16:57:39 GMT

I don't have any good suggestion than to check that NFC defines from the example project is copied over, and all the source (.c) files are included in the project and paths. Also try to do a clean build after saving all changes.

Kenneth

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Gerrikoio — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 16:30:39 GMT

yes I have.

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Kenneth — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 16:18:25 GMT

You have included in your main.c?

#include "nfc_t2t_lib.h"
#include "nfc_uri_msg.h"

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Gerrikoio — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 14:53:28 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I did notice that there are a couple of BLE central/NFC combo examples under the experimental folder inside BLE central examples. However, these go way beyond what I need as these deal with ble oob pairing and in some cases use t4t (tag type 4) library files.

Also, I noticed that none of these examples use nfc_t2t_lib.

The NFC record_url example does use nfc_t2t_lib.

So, as soon as I include the necessary file, i.e. .../components/nfc/t2t_lib/nfc_t2t_lib_gcc.a then I get all these errors as in it cannot find the functions etc. within this file even though IDE's "intelli-sense" knows of functions etc.

So something is not right.

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Kenneth — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 11:39:57 GMT

Hi,

You may find some help by looking at the ble peripheral examples that enable nfc, such as ble_app_hrs_nfc_pairing and ble_hids_keyboard_nfc_pairing. Unfortunately I am not aware of any good lookup other than to look at the sdk_config.h and the usage of the define in the header/source files.

Best regards,
Kenneth

RE: Trying to combine BLE Central UART with NFC URI examples

Gerrikoio — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 15:08:30 GMT

I hadn't thought to check the sdk_config.h file. It appears there are quite a few NFC settings within this file that probably require a manual change. Other than 1 or 2 obvious "enable" flags I cannot figure what else to chance etc.

I am thus also curious to know where I can find documentation about what changes impact what etc.