nRF51822 without buying DK/EK?

[Ricardo Nunes]

I'm looking for information to start developing BLE slaves with nRF51822, but I can't find any datasheets/SDK. Do I need to buy the Development Kit in order to have that? Is Segger programmer required? It looks like it's programmed/debuged through SWD, I already have a programmer that I use for other Cortex M0 boards (LPCXpresso)

[Ole Morten]

Normally, you'd have to buy some kit to get a product key and a programmer/debugger, and I do think you'd be better off doing that. However, I know that some other guys here have been working on getting things up and running without a J-Link, for example as discussed here.

I do think you'd make your life easier by getting a Development Kit or Evaluation Kit, and it's the only way to get official access to the softdevice and SDKs.

[Bastiaan]

Still better then Texas solution (IAR costs too much), but damn, why Nordic charges for that information? They're already making money with the chips, but I guess that 100€ it's not a problem for a company but for some hobbyists that just want to play around it could be an expense that they just don't want to have and, sometimes, those hobbyists eventually build companies selling the stuff that they used to play with and nordic just lost some millions in BLE transceiver sales (it's a dramatic opinion but it's not impossible).

Btw, congrats on the GCC+Eclipse solution, if I had 100€ right now I would totally love to work with that transceiver, keep up the good work :)

[Guest]

Still better then Texas solution (IAR costs too much), but damn, why Nordic charges for that information? They're already making money with the chips, but I guess that 100€ it's not a problem for a company but for some hobbyists that just want to play around it could be an expense that they just don't want to have and, sometimes, those hobbyists eventually build companies selling the stuff that they used to play with and nordic just lost some millions in BLE transceiver sales (it's a dramatic opinion but it's not impossible).

Btw, congrats on the GCC+Eclipse solution, if I had 100€ right now I would totally love to work with that transceiver, keep up the good work :)

[Ole Morten]

Unfortunately, this is the way it currently is, and there isn't much I can do about it in the short term at least. :-/

[Bastiaan]

You could use http://www.lairdtech.com/Products/Embedded-Wireless-Solutions/Bluetooth-Radio-Modules/BL600-Series/ which requires no toolchain to write your own BLE in BASIC language. You have access to all the interfaces (uart,i2c.spi.gpio) with high level api and can even create any custom service you want.