Direction on chip set

[Stavros Tsardounis]

I have used the nrf8002 chip before and love it but now I am trying a different application that requires a bit more smarts. I am trying to design a system that can have an unlimited amounts of connections (wifi/mesh) and will be used for sensor data. Power is a big concern of course. The idea is that I will keep the sensor in deep sleep mode every minute. Check sensor value, if hits a thresh hold, turn on BLE and send the data through to a hub or directly over wifi to a server. I would also like to be able to have OTA programming as well.

I have looked into Electric Imp as a solution but there closed back end box and subscription model based system was a turn off for me. What would be a good first step towards a nordic solution of the above use case scenario?

Ideally I would like the battery to last 1-5 years. even if I need to use a 1 amp coin cell battery.

Also, my programming knowledge is very limited. Arduino, Html, CSS, JS, basics of java/c# (Why I like the nrf8002 chipset) What is the best way to program the firmware on the SOC as a starting off base?

[Nguyen Hoan Hoang]

Well, I wouldn't say which is best way because it depends on the each person. I'd say start by selecting your development environment. The default supported by Nordic SDK is Keil but it's expensive. The eval allows you to create code with a limit of 32KB. It's not enough for real work but enough for learning. You can start from there and learn how the SDK and the SoC works by going through the example codes from the SDK. Once you got a hang of it, you either continue with Keil (pay the license fee) or try other environment like Eclipse GCC which is free. The downsize with Eclipse is that it is very hard to learn and the SDK does not directly support GCC. Programming language is C or C++. Since you know Arduino, you already have some basic of C/C++ programming. Arduino is C++ based.