Quickest and Easiest nRF52x Development for key fob

[Jeff]

Hi all,

I'm completely new to wireless connectivity development and I am looking to use a nRF52832 module for simply communicating button presses between a power optimized coin cell key fob peripheral device and a central base station. The base station module will also allow command/control via a peripheral smartphone like a ‘virtual keyfob’.

I've narrowed down possible module suppliers to Laird who provides their own suite of dev kits, development support, firmware, set of example apps, ect. However, Nordic has its own set of dev kits, example software, ect. which doesn't look like they're easily compatible since Laird's stack is programmed with smartBASIC.

For such a simple application, can anyone with experience with Laird, Rigado, or wireless remote development in general comment on the pros/cons of of the Softdevice stack vs smartBASIC stack; essentially which path may be quicker/intuitive for a key fob remote application?

I should also mention that in the future, more complex features may be implemented such as BL5 mesh.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Drewster]

I'd say it depends on what you're trying to do. Are you trying to make a proof of concept? Senior Design Project? An actual product?

If you're trying to just make something work (i.e. school project or PoC), poke through the SDK and smartBASIC stuff to see what examples make sense to you and what seems applicable to your use-case (the Nordic UART examples are great)

For an actual product, I would use the Nordic SDK since it's well supported, documented, and can easily be used on the Laird dev board once you understand some tweaks. Not to mention... who wants to put "smartBASIC" on their resume? For something that's going to become a product, you'll also want some in-depth troubleshooting and programming options, which you can adapt the Nordic SDK to do using their tutorials as a starting point.

In general, though - I'd warn you that it's likely not going to be as easy as "load and go" whichever route you choose. There's quite a lot of functions involved to handle peers, communicate, use GPIO, etc. and it sounds like there's going to be a learning curve as you press on.

Good luck!