Custom Service with HID Keyboard

[Jay8ee]

Hi all.

I want to run the NRF52 dev kit as an HID keyboard, and I've got that working nicely thanks to the keyboard BLE peripheral in the SDK samples, but I also want to be able to configure the HW via some custom characteristics (I think I need my own service for that).

I want the hardware to pair to android, iphone, pc, etc as a keyboard with no additional setup for the user, but IF they want to configure the hardware via my custom service they can via either a generic BLE app or a custom one I will make.

Is this possible? To have a bog-standard keyboard HID ble peripheral, that can be customized via a custom service? If so, please can you point me at some information that will help me add this to the keyboard example from the SDK.

Thanks.

[Sigurd]

Hi,

Yes, that should be possible. Can you explain a bit more about what kind of configuration options you want to add with the BLE characteristics? What kind of functionality do you plan to add with these characteristics?

[Jay8ee]

Thanks for the reply.

What I want to make is a keyboard macro of sorts. The device will act as a Bluetooth keyboard that sends strings of keypresses when a switch is pressed. The configuration aspect is so the user can customize what string of keypresses actually gets sent. I think the best way to allow this customization is through a characteristic on a custom service?

Thanks.

[Sigurd]

Jay8ee said:

I think the best way to allow this customization is through a characteristic on a custom service?

 OK, I understand. Yes, a characteristic on a custom service is the best way to implement this.

[Jay8ee]

Great. Can you point in the direction of some material that might show me how to add this custom service to the Keyboard example in the SDK? I'd repeat that it is important for this project that the device be a keyboard HID that can pair with android, ios, windows, etc. with no additional configuration if the user doesn't want to.

Thanks.

[Sigurd]

Jay8ee said:

Can you point in the direction of some material that might show me how to add this custom service to the Keyboard example in the SDK?

 If you are using the nRF5 SDK, then this course here shows you how to implement a custom service:

https://github.com/NordicPlayground/nRF52-Bluetooth-Course