Connecting BLE devices to the IoT is becoming an essential requirement of many products, so to help you get your IoT project jump started, Nordic Semiconductor is launching a set of IoT developer tools. Currently the tools are in beta with a full release planned later this summer. Check it out at nrfcloud.com.
As always, these IoT tools and the hosting of the IoT platform are provided for free for our developers. The code is also available on GitHub if you want to use nRF Cloud as a starter template for your own IoT service.
The first tool is the BLE Gateway. The Gateway translates standard Bluetooth protocol to the REST/MQTT/IP protocol. Among other things, this gateway architecture choice means that all your current BLE devices are already IoT ready! The Gateway currently runs only on a PC but iOS and Android versions are planned for the full release. The Gateway code can be downloaded here.
The BLE Gateway communicates with the nRF Cloud back-end that is hosted on AWS and is developed using a suite of SaaS components. The use of AWS SaaS components ensures that your devices and data will be secured with the latest in end-to-end security, and that the service will be reliable and scalable from a few to hundreds of BLE devices.
The final tool in nRF Cloud is the front-end at nrfcloud.com. This is the application (web page) where you can manage and monitor your IoT devices. The application runs on all major browsers and devices. On nRF Cloud you can monitor your data being streamed to the IoT in real-time, or pull data from the database to see device data streamed earlier. You can also download your data to analyze offline. We have also included tools in the application for you to directly monitor and control the BLE services and characteristics. To make the user interface as intuitive as possible, nRF Cloud has been pre-programmed with many BLE standardized and Nordic proprietary services and characteristics.
nRF Cloud works out of the box with the Nordic Thingy:52 and the Nordic DK and SDK examples. Download the Quick Start Guide here. Give us your feedback at [email protected].
Create an nRF Cloud account and get started!
