nabil.me

Update: Project is posted on GitHub

One thing I always need for my hardware projects — whether I'm working on sensors for the home or a fitness device — is a low power, cross-platform, and affordable wireless module. I've used HopeRF modules like the RFM22B for their affordability and low power capabilities, but because they don't use any standard wireless protocol, I'm forced to make adapters for endpoints like smartphones or computers.

Wireless standards like ZigBee partially solve this problem, but off-the-shelf modules are expensive and still don't help if you want to talk to a smartphone. One might think Bluetooth is the solution then, but in the past, power efficiency and range were a problem if you were building a temperature sensor, for example. Also, you had to be a certified Apple accessory developer if you wanted to make a Bluetooth accessory for the most popular smartphone in the market. Well, all of this has changed with Bluetooth 4.

Bluetooth 4 Low Energy is the latest incarnation of the Bluetooth standard, which most devices released this year will adopt. Bluetooth.com says:

Key features of Bluetooth Low Energy wireless technology include:

• Ultra-low peak, average, and idle mode power consumption
• Ability to run for years on standard coin-cell batteries
• Low cost
• Multi-vendor interoperability
• Enhanced range

There are two reasons why you should be excited by this.
First, this low energy mode means you can use Bluetooth in a range of new applications like home automation, wearable electronics, or anything that needs to log data for long periods of time.
Second, Apple has opened up their Bluetooth API so anyone can create a Bluetooth accessory for iOS 5 and later.

Why did they do this? One reason might be they don't have to worry about developers draining a user’s battery with a poorly made accessory with the new standard. I can't think of any reason to use a different wireless standard for these reasons.

This brings me to my breakout board.
This breakout board is the reference schematic for the Nordic nRF8001 done in Eagle (originally done in Altium by Nordic). It is a simple wireless transceiver with an SPI interface and only a few passive components.

Why this IC?

A quick search on major electronic distributor websites shows there are a few manufacturers of Bluetooth 4 chips:

• Blue Giga — ~$20–$40
• Cambridge Silicon Radio — ~$3
• Nordic Semiconductor — ~$4
• TI — ~$5
• Panasonic — ~$15
• RFM (same one iPhone uses) — ~$40

Parts from Panasonic, Blue Giga, and RFM provide ready-to-go modules, which explains their high price. RFM actually includes Wi-Fi!
Only TI, CSR, and Nordic provide ICs. However:

• TI is larger and more expensive, offering a complete SoC with an integrated 8051 processor.
• CSR makes you sign an NDA to get the datasheet.

So I chose Nordic because of the IC’s small footprint, open specs, affordability, and simplicity.
Sourcing the parts from Mouser.com, it looks like a populated board should cost ~$12.
Take a look at my BOM.

One thing you should keep in mind: none of these chips are backward compatible with older Bluetooth standards — but that shouldn’t be a problem by the end of 2012.

I plan to send out the board and order the parts this week. Hopefully I can also start working on firmware and a few demo smartphone apps.
Until then, check out the source on GitHub.

Credit to Dr. Michael Kroll for the information about Bluetooth 4 and Mi-Fi.
Check out his Arduino Shield.