Will a new nRF dongle be released due to Bluetooth 5?

[MANGO]

Hi, I received an e-mail about the new nRF52840.

Nordic Semiconductor has today released the new nRF52840 multi-protocol SoC
with on-chip support for the upcoming Bluetooth 5 specification.
In addition to Bluetooth 5 the nRF52840 also introduces on-chip support for the 802.15.4 standard. 

I was about to buy the dongle, based on the nRF51422, to sniff packets.

Also, I'm not sure whether the Bluetooth 5 has backward compatibility.

So I'm concerned whether to buy a dongle or not.

My questions are,

0. Can the nRF51422 based dongle sniffs packets which are created by nRF52840?

1. Do Nordic plans to create an upgraded dongle in the future for preparing Bluetooth 5?

If so I wish to hear the future product's release date.

-Best Regards

[Ulrich Myhre]

For future releases, you should contact the sales representative for your region. If you do not know who this is, send me a message with your location and I will provide you with contact information.

As for your first question, the answer is mostly yes. The nRF52840 supports two new radio modes that are not supported in the nRF51 series. The already existing nRF52832 already supports one of these too.

So an nRF51 based sniffer is able to pick up packets sent on the normal PHY, which is 1mbit. It will not be able to pick up the newer ones, if these are put to use. Right now, these newly defined speeds are not backwards-compatible for sniffing purposes, but in normal connections a BT 5 device can choose to fall back to 1mbit if it cannot establish a connection.

[MANGO]

Hi, Ulrich. You mean the nRF52832 supports the new radio modes? Which one are you mentioning?

I use PCA10040 and I never realized it.

I live in Seoul, Korea. I do know the contact info of the domestic distributor.

However, I don't know the contact info of the sales representative.

Can you provide me about the info?

[Ulrich Myhre]

Yes, the nRF52 has a 2mbit mode that can now be utilized in BT 5.0. Until the adoption of 5.0 today, it could not be utilized outside proprietary modes. I have sent you a message with the contact information.

[MANGO]

Thanks. Before closing this question, is there an explanation about the "2bit mode" in the nRF52 product specification?

I wish to read the document about that part.

-Deeply appreciate your help

[Ulrich Myhre]

Yes, it is mentioned in the Radio chapter of the Product Specification (Ch. 23) and is set with the MODE register. There is no mode for BLE_2Mbit, only Nrf_2Mbit, because 2Mbit was not officially supported until today. You are unlikely to encounter such devices for quite some time, so an nRF51 based sniffer should do just fine for a while.