Is there any possible way to sedn the data from peripheral device(nrf52832 dev kit) to nrf52840 dongle which is connected to Bluetooth-less desktop

[sagarnayakm]

Hello,

In my project, i want to send the data from the ble device nrf52832 dev kit to the nrf52840 dongle which is connected to a Bluetooth-less desktop. Some desktop doesn't have inbuilt Bluetooth and for that, i used an nrf52840 dongle with the help of nrf connect desktop app i flashed the dongle(here i don't have any example or source file, firmware flashed directly by the app), and when I connect it to desktop & scan the peripheral devices with Bluetooth low energy option in nrf connect app. even I can connect the peripheral devices.

Now the issue is how can I send the data from the nrf52832 dev kit to nrf dongle because there is no source file I couldn't add code to receive the data. i tried ble_app_blinky and ble_app_blinky_c examples to send the button state data from peripheral to central so can i use the same for nrf52832 and dongle.??

if so, using the dongle can we connect it to PC and send the data to pc.??

please let me know how can i implement this.

Thank You. 

[Hung Bui]

Hi Sagarnayakm, 

Are you using nRF 5 SDK or you are using nRF Connect SDK ? In your other case you were mentioning about Zephyr and nRF Connect SDK. 

My understanding is that now you have a set-up that you can transmit data from a nRF52 peripheral to the nRF52840 dongle that connect to a PC running nRF Connect for Desktop. 

Now you want to develop your own application on PC that can do something similar, to receive data from the nRF52 peripheral. 

My suggestion is to try the ble_app_uart and ble_app_uart_c. You flash the ble_app_uart on one DK and ble_app_uart_c on another DK. Note that you need to use development kit for development. Don't use the dongle for development. 
After you followed the documentation and can forward UART data from one PC to another PC (or from a phone to the PC), you can write your own application to read the UART data instead of using a UART terminal. 

After that you can star the next step to either make your own PCB to make a dongle or use nordic dongle and use USB instead of UART. But that should be the next step. 

This is the most simple way of getting data to PC. If you want to have full control from PC, the same as you have in nRF Connect for Desktop, you would need to use pc_ble_drive. Have a look here: https://github.com/NordicSemiconductor/pc-ble-driver And the python binding here: https://github.com/NordicSemiconductor/pc-ble-driver-py

We have some examples in the repos that you can have a look. 

[sagarnayakm]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply, 

Hung Bui said:

After you followed the documentation and can forward UART data from one PC to another PC (or from a phone to the PC), you can write your own application to read the UART data instead of using a UART terminal. 

Regarding this point, I have experienced the ble_app_uart example and i can able to send the data from hw uart and receive it in the dev kit  and push the same data to the mobile app. This is what the example code would do. but i don't have any idea about ble_app_uart_c.

Hung Bui said:

After that you can star the next step to either make your own PCB to make a dongle or use nordic dongle and use USB instead of UART. But that should be the next step. 

Already I have my custom dongle pcb board and i tried the usbd_cdc_acm example to send the data from the terminal to the dongle and it's working fine.

still a lot of effort I don't know which example is suitable for a dongle board since the firmware is flashed via nrf connect app.

Regarding pc_ble_driver I have seen this before only but it's really confusing and I don't know to kick-start this. please help me step by step then it will very easy to get into that. 

Please help me.

Thank You.

[Hung Bui]

Hi Sagarnayakm, 

Please follow the documentation and test ble_app_uart_c.
Please prepare 2 DK , one running ble_app_uart and the other run ble_app_uart_c. 
They do what exactly you need. 

[sagarnayakm]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply, ok will go through that and update you.

[sagarnayakm]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply, i tried ble_pp_uart and ble_app_uart_c examples and i can able to send the data from pc to pc and mobile to pc also but after this what i need to do??

please tel me the next step.

thank you.

[Hung Bui]

Hi Sgarnayakm, 

Could you give us the requirement of your application ? Can you build your application based on the UART -> BLE ---- BLE -> UART communication ?

[sagarnayakm]

hello,

actually, I have an nrf52810 custom device that reads the character's data via hw uart and writes to Notepad to connected devices like mobile/laptops. Some laptops don't have in-built Bluetooth we can use the nrf52840 dongle as a Bluetooth dongle to pc to connect my nrf52810 device. after that whatever the data coming from uart to nrf52810, it sends to the dongle over a ble and the dongle writes data to notepad via USB.

this is the application, and as of now I can read the data from uart and writes to the connected devices like mobile/laptops. so now the desktops/laptops which don't have Bluetooth should use the dongle to receive the data over ble. 

if with nrf5 sdk is not possible, i ok to use nrf connect sdk also. please let me know your suggestions.

Hung Bui said:

Can you build your application based on the UART -> BLE ---- BLE -> UART communication ?

Regarding this once the dongle is connected to pc how it will act as a dongle if I use ble_app_uart_c because i couldn't scan any peripheral devices and it connected only if the name Nordic_UART. Ok after connecting like this the data received over uart is that need to use ble_nus_send() API to send the data from nrf52810 to dongle.?? 

still i am confused.