With over 600 exhibitors gathering in Tokyo, Japan from April 10-12, IT Week has become one of the biggest exhibitions within the IoT Technology sector.
Raytac is pleased to be attending this years IT Week and present our full range of module family based on Nordic nRF51822, nRF52832 and nRF52840.
Meanwhile, the latest product, MDBT50Q-RX, a multi protocol nRF52840 dongle will make its second public appearance which powers up the most advanced IoT and Mesh network implementations.
Raytac’s BT5 certified nRF52840 USB dongle, MDBT50Q-RX, eliminating the need for RF design expertise, and speeding time to market for complex M2M IoT applications. The Dongle built by Raytac’s MDBT50Q-P1M module with FCC/IC/CE/Telec/KC/SRRC/NCC/RCM/WPC certification.
To enhance the accessibility to Raytac BLE module sample for evaluation and development, Raytac has put effort to corporate with several channels.
Differ channels may carry various items, we encourage developers firstly visiting Raytac official site. The easy link options listed in each product may help customers to select the friendly channel to approach.
Bluetooth has been around for quite some time, but that doesn’t mean that no one is a beginner when it comes to developing Bluetooth-based products. In fact, due to their recent updates, Bluetooth is becoming increasingly popular as demand for power efficient gadgets and wireless technology is increasing. Smart watches is just one of the many examples out there.
For each and every single one of these devices, you’ll first have to register your new product with Bluetooth-functions built in on Bluetooth SIG’s website. You will eventually register (and pay for) your product based on what version of the Bluetooth protocol that you’re using in the product and do so by purchasing a so called Declaration ID (DID).
Yes, a little exaggeration in the title, but that’s essentially what it comes down to. Bluetooth SIG is doing some major updates and changes to the Bluetooth protocol which includes getting rid of the more outdated versions.
There are quite a few versions of the Bluetooth protocol out there, but nowadays you will basically be advised to choose from 2 versions:
v.4.2 or v.5.0
These two versions would be, as I mentioned in the title, the two current versions of Bluetooth.
Although it might seem very simple at first, there are a few things that you need to understand the content of the announcements to fully grasp what these updates and changes mean. That, my friends, is today’s topic of this post.
When a specification reaches the end of its useful life, the Bluetooth® SIG may choose either to deprecate the specification, ending maintenance and restricting its use, or to withdraw the specification from use.
Bluetooth SIG – https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/archived-specifications
What has changed recently is nothing new, but it’s big. What I mean is that similar changes have been done in the past, but since the market is more dependent on the technology now than before, it matters far more for people when the Bluetooth SIG do the same changes nowadays. Those changes are as follows:
On 01/28/2019, the following policy changes will be enacted:
– Creating new designs that implement deprecated or withdrawn specifications will not be permitted
– New products cannot be added to designs that implement withdrawn specifications
– You cannot pay a $25,000 fee to qualify a new design that implements a deprecated specification
– Purchased but unused $25,000 Declaration IDs will no longer be valid and the cost of any unused $25,000 Declaration IDs will be credited to your accountBluetooth SIG – bluetooth.com
This piece of information tells us that the process of withdrawing specifications comes down to two different steps, namely deprecation and withdrawal.
While deprecation literally means “to stop use”, it is in this case the first step in the process of making a certain Bluetooth specification obsolete.
Then there’s a time gap between a certain specification gets deprecated until it’s withdrawn. During this gap, as mentioned above, no new designs can be paid for and/or registered and unused DID’s will be invalid. This is only to prevent new devices with deprecated Bluetooth specifications from being produced. To stop the “bloodline” of those specifications if you will. During this gap, however, you are still able to add new products that implement the same fundamental design (e.g. version updates) as you wish.
After this gap is over, when the specification in question is actually withdrawn, you will not be able to add any new products to any existing designs.
Got it? No? It’s alright. In fact, there’s a lot of information and it’s hard to put into context right away. Just to make things clear, let’s make an example:
Company R is currently developing a new device called RIC which implements Bluetooth 4.0 specifications. For now, everything’s alright and Company R can go right ahead with their developments.
When the Bluetooth core specification 4.0 becomes deprecated in Jan 28th, Company R can no longer come up with new product designs such as RIC-2 since that would count as a new design, but Company R can update their original device RIC as long as they don’t change the physical design.
Then, when the Bluetooth core specification 4.0 is finally withdrawn, Company R cannot update their product RIC anymore AND they cannot register new designs under Bluetooth core specification 4.0.
If you’re a developer who is very familiar with Bluetooth already, this information might already be, as certain people refer it as, “peanuts”. If you’re new to the Bluetooth world, however, this is a lot to take in and you might want to read up more about it. We hope this explanation made things clearer for you though 🙂
You can find more info at:
Bluetooth SIG – https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/archived-specifications
Don’t forget that Raytac Corporation’s modules are all pre-certified with FCC, TELEC, IC, CE, RCM, KC and SRRC. The best part is that more is yet to come!
Take a look at our modules on our website: http://www.raytac.com
With over 1,000 exhibitors gathering in Nuremberg, Germany on 26 Feb.~29 Feb., 2019 , Embedded World has become one of the biggest trade fair among the IoT Technologies.
Raytac released nRF52840 USB Dongle which deployed MDBT50Q-P1M module offers a Bluetooth 5 specification granted, FCC/IC/Telec(MIC)/KC/SRRC/NCC/WPC pre-certified, and CE/RCM compliant solution.
After setup been done, here comes the next question: How to program the firmware in to the module. We are using some simple instruction in below for reader’s quick reference.
Hardware
You will need a Nordic nRF5X DK or a Segger J-link as programmer to load the firmware. To use Nordic nRF5X DK to debug the SoC as well, you will need to order corresponding nRF5X DK to match the SoC number. For example, order nRF52840 DK to debug nRF52840 SoC or order nRF52 DK to debug nRF52832/52810 SoC. But if you are only using it as programmer, any version of nRF5X DK will work as we only use the J-link on this board.
Software
Please download Nordic nRFGo Studio for programming. Remember to install nRF5X Command Line Tools if the board was not detected by nRFGo Studio. Once they are all connected, you can then start programming. Please make sure to “erase all” every time before programming.
For more tutorials and demo of sample code, please visit Nordic’s DevZone and Infocenter where have ample resources to utilize.
Programing
SoftDevice + Application
SoftDevice + Bootloader+ Application
To easy customer’s IoT device mass production, Raytac provide code pre-program service into module before shipment. There are requirements listed in below for customers who need the service!
Raytac Corporation, a recommended 3rd-party module maker by Nordic Semiconductor, announced that MDBT42Q series module now provide a Reel Package option for customers’ selection.
When you start developing your firmware for your Nordic nRF52832 solution-based Raytac BLE module, you will (like on most other projects) bump into some difficulties.
The other day, we had yet another case where a simple thing caused major difficulties for even some of the brightest people – a customer couldn’t get their GPIO direction bit to work.
Although not too difficult to solve, it’s a common error that most customers end up having on our modules and that is because Pin 0.09 & 0.10 are set to NFC per Nordic’s default settings. In order to be able to use these pins as normal GPIOs, you will have to change those settings.
The two pins I am talking about are the ones linked to the NFC-part to the far left in the circuit example below:
So, to convert these two pins to normal GPIOs, here’s what you need to do:
In SES, you’ll need to add CONFIG_NFCT_PINS_AS_GPIOS.
Check out the link below for a reference example on Nordic’s DevZone.
Reference link: Nordic DevZone – NFC pins into GPIOs
