Bluetooth licensing fees?

[Emil]

Is there a way to avoid fees, and still use BLE? Do I need to change UUIDs or leave them be?

If not can the nrf51822 be used to just use the pure 2.4 ghz protocol and DFU at the same time? Or is DFU BLE based? It is not crucial that we use BLE, just a wireless low power protocol with good range!

I just assumed it was free to use as long as I didn't want to have an official bluetooth logo or something like that! Isn't the bluetooth fee priced in the chip costs?

[Øyvind Karlsen]

Hi Emil,

To sell a BLE product you need to comply with the following:

• FCC regulatory requirements

• R&TTE regulatory requirements

• IC regulatory requirements

• Bluetooth compliance and certification

Please see the Regulatory and Compliance standards whitepaper, for more infomation about the Bluetooth compliance and certification, see this post as well as START B on the bluetooth SIG pages.

DFU is using our BLE stack, so it is not possible to utilize this service without using our SoftDevices. However it is possible to implement your own proprietary protocol that includes support for over-the-air firmware updates.

You can definitely create a proprietary protocol, and this would make you avoid the fees to Bluetooth SIG, however you still need to comply with the regulatory requirements.

Best regards,

Øyvind

[gaminn]

Do I need to pass Bluetooth compliance and certification even when I'm not advertising the product as Bluetooth-enabled product (i.e. I don't mention Bluetooth or their logo anywhere)?

[Øyvind Karlsen]

Yes, you are still using Bluetooth technology, so you will need to pass compliance and certification.

[Emil]

I am not sure what the price is, but can't possibly be low. I don't really need bluetooth, it's just a convenience. Can I use NRF51 DK to do the same as your proprietary nrf24l01+ ? Or would that cost money too?

[Øyvind Karlsen]

Prices range from 2500-8000$.

You can definitely use the nRF51 in proprietary mode, have a look at the transmitter example(found in source_folder\examples\peripheral\radio\transmitter) from the SDK.

[Emil]

Thanks! But would that save me costs? Or would it incur me a secret Nordic Semiconductor fee? :)