Connecting nRF52840 Dongle to EYSHCNZWZ Transceiver

[Jaz]

Hi All, 

I'm a student starting a project on a low-power bluetooth accelerometer. I have selected the MC3672 accelerometer (mcubemems.com/.../), which will be soldered onto a circuit with the EYSHCNZWZ transceiver and I want them to communicate via I2C/SPI. I would like the transceiver to send the sensor output data to my MacBook Air through BLE via the nRF52840 Dongle which will be connected to my MacBook Air. I was wondering if this seems like a viable project that will work? I'm also wanting to make a desktop app to be able to display the sensor data but I'm not sure how I would go about doing this. I'm not sure how I would go about getting the dongle to recognise the EYSHCNZWZ transceiver and store the data it obtains on my  computer, and in the application I'd like to create. I'm only at the component-ordering stage of the process and so I'd appreciate any help! 

Thank you. 

[ovrebekk]

Hi

What you describe is definitely doable using the nRF52 devices, as long as you have the time to get all the pieces in place ;)

In the nRF5 SDK we have some examples using the Nordic UART service (NUS), which allows you to send custom strings back and forth between two devices. 

We have one example which sets up an nRF52840 device as a NUS to USB bridge (running the CDC ACM 'virtual comport' USB class), meaning it can receive strings from another device running the NUS example and pass it over USB to a PC. This example should be a good starting point for the dongle. 

Then on the sensor side you can run the ble_app_uart_c (NUS client) example, which can connect to the nRF52840 device and exchange data with it. 
In theory then all you need to do on the sensor side is to write a driver to access your sensor, and pass the sensor data over the NUS service to the dongle. 

As for the Mac application you can basically use any framework that allows you to connect to a serial port, allowing you to receive the data from the dongle. As a proof of concept you could simply use a standard terminal program. 

When it comes to hardware I would strongly suggest starting your work using standard development kits (nRF52840DK for the dongle, and nRF52DK for the sensor side). Once you have a working prototype running on the devkits you can try to integrate it with the dongle and the EYSHCNZWZ module. 

The devkits come with built in debugging capabilities making them much more practical for development. 

Best regards
Torbjørn