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New Smart Remote 3 SDK release enables cost optimized Bluetooth 5 voice remote controls

Pär H

 It has been some time since we released new SDK for the nRFready Smart Remote 3 for nRF52 Series. The recently released rev 1.2 of the firmware introduces a lot of new features and improvements. This SDK is tailored towards remote control applications, however, there are still a lot of features in this SDK which we think are useful for other applications. Especially for applications which need to transmit voice quality audio over a Bluetooth LE link.

New key features in the SDK is Bluetooth 5 support and support for both nRF52832 (existing) and nRF52810 (new). With this new SDK and the nRF52810, it is possible to create high-performance, cost optimized Bluetooth 5 voice remote control, with the most commonly requested features which include:

  • Bluetooth 5 including support for 2Mbit/s
  • Voice – ADPCM, SBC or OPUS compressed
  • Keyboard
  • IR transmitter
  • Gyro and wakeup accelerometers
  • OTA-DFU of the application

We also added a lot of other new features and improvements, there are too many of them to spell out in detail in this blog but we made a list of the new features at the bottom of this blog post.

Simplifying development

We also spent a lot of effort in simplifying the development of remote controls with the new SDK.  See the video below how easy it is Wink

We added a command line interface (CLI) with support for Bluetooth LE, RTT and UART. Using a command line interface at runtime is a very powerful feature to debug applications and to create automated tests. The audio sub-system also got some new features to simplify implementation for developers. We included a new audio tool making it possible to tap-out or inject audio in all parts of the audio sub-system of the remote. This makes it easy to evaluate and fine tune audio algorithms as well as debug the audio.  The documentation has received a well- deserved update, including 10 new chapters on Firmware Architecture, a new Getting Started guide, and detailed descriptions of the host tools delivered with the remote. The configuration files have been ‘doxygenized’ and are now part of the doc which means we can refer to them from other chapters - a big improvement on developer experience.

New features in FW version 1.2

Below you can see the complete list of new features in this new release. Download the SDK, electronic schematics, documentation and host tools here, downloading the SDK no longer requires use of a product key.

  • SoC
    • Support for nRF52810
    • Support for the S112 SoftDevice
  • Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
    • Public Address support
    • Ability to add Manufacturer Data to advertising packets
    • Data Length Extension (DLE) support
    • Large MTU support
    • 2 Mbit/s PHY support
    • PA/LNA interface
  • Audio
    • ATVV service support
    • New codecs
      • SBC
      • mSBC
    • Update of codecs
      • Opus codec updated to version 1.2.1
    • Additional sampling frequencies
      • 8 kHz
      • 16 kHz
      • 24 kHz
      • 32 kHz
    • New tools
      • Improved audio gauges (detailed statistics about resource usage)
      • Audio Probe
  • Command Line Interface (CLI)
    • Supported backends
      • Bluetooth LE
      • RTT
      • UART
    • CLI integration with new logging infrastructure
    • CLI integration with audio subsystem
      • CLI commands for audio subsystem inspection
      • CLI commands for audio subsystem reconfiguration at runtime
  • Advanced Logger:
    • Per-module log level configuration (at runtime if CLI is used)
    • Supported backends
      • RTT
      • UART
      • Bluetooth LE (if CLI is enabled)
  • Device Firmware Update
    • Bond sharing support
    • Stability updates
  • IR
    • NEC IR protocol support
  • Other
    • Combo keys handling infrastructure