CC2541 with TI firmware

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Matias N.

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May 13, 2019, 8:22:37 AM5/13/19
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Hi,

I'm looking into which BLE modules are both widely available (and cheap) and supported by NuttX. I understand that the way to go is to find a device which can speak HCI UART.

In terms of availability and price, I see that CC2541 based devices (such as HM-10) are good options. On the other hand, these come with a typical AT based firmware. However, I've read that there's an official firmware from TI which supports HCI UART. Since this is precompiled and available, there's no need for the expensive IAR toolchain. Moreover, I've found some Arduino based projects which emulate the required hardware programmer.


Anyone already tried/considered this option? Do you think it is feasible given current NuttX support?


On the other hand, I see NuttX supports MCUs with built-in radio, such as NRF52 or ESP32, but I understand the corresponding controller stack is not yet available, right?


Best,

Matias

Gregory Nutt

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May 13, 2019, 8:42:59 AM5/13/19
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I'm looking into which BLE modules are both widely available (and cheap) and supported by NuttX. I understand that the way to go is to find a device which can speak HCI UART.

In terms of availability and price, I see that CC2541 based devices (such as HM-10) are good options. On the other hand, these come with a typical AT based firmware. However, I've read that there's an official firmware from TI which supports HCI UART. Since this is precompiled and available, there's no need for the expensive IAR toolchain. Moreover, I've found some Arduino based projects which emulate the required hardware programmer.


Anyone already tried/considered this option? Do you think it is feasible given current NuttX support?

There is already a driver for the CC2564 in the repository at drivers/wireless/bluetooth.  My understand is that this requires so additional logic to load the firmware at boot time.  There should be some old discussion about that in the forum messages.

On the other hand, I see NuttX supports MCUs with built-in radio, such as NRF52 or ESP32, but I understand the corresponding controller stack is not yet available, right?

For the NRF52,  I am aware that people have added incorporated the Nordic WiFi stack themselves, but I don't know very much about that.

ESP32 for nuttx has seen a lot of recent development inhttps://github.com/Samsung/TizenRT at https://github.com/Samsung/TizenRT/tree/master/os/arch/xtensa

it says that WiFi support as add at "Merge: e208e97fc e3ea3f78e", but I don't see anything about Bluetooth

Jason Harris

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May 13, 2019, 8:47:09 AM5/13/19
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Here's a summary of my experience with BLE chips:

TI - avoid. The dev support is horrible and they want you use proprietary tools linked to a binary lump.

Broadcom/Cypress - avoid. Similar to TI for the dev model. A little bit better in so far as the Wiced environment actually supports gcc.

Nordic (nRF52) - easily the best development environment and documentation. gcc is supported.
The Nordic BLE implementation does come from a thing they call a "soft device" - a binary lump.
But: There is at least one full source code, open source stack:

https://www.zephyrproject.org/

For my BLE + HCI/UART implementation we've gone with nRF52 + Zephyr.

I'm not aware of a BLE stack for Nuttx.

Jason H.








Alan Carvalho de Assis

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May 13, 2019, 12:31:09 PM5/13/19
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Hi Jason,

The NuttX BLE Stack only supports standalone BLE chips with HCI interface.

The BLE Stack of Zephyr was implemented by a Nordic Semi employee on his free time, but currently Nordic pays he to work on it.

I contacted he and ask if he could release it as BSD license to be used on NuttX. He told me that he was going to ask his boss, but never returned, even after I asking again some months later.

Unfortunately the Apache license only allows "pollination" in one direction (their direction), same to GPL and other restrictive licenses.

So, since NuttX uses HCI interface any manufacturer will work. Since they release a HCI firmware.

Also there is the Certification subject: these companies pay a lot of money to certificate their BLE Stack. AFAIK none open-source stack is certificated.

zGlue guys explained they added support to proprietary Nordic softdevice firmware on NuttX instead of porting the Zephyr BLE Stack to NuttX for this reason.

But it should be nice to Full BLE Stack for NuttX.

BR,

Alan

PS: Sony is using BlueKitchen with NuttX, it is also an alternative if you can pay for it.

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Naasik Hendricks

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May 13, 2019, 12:59:50 PM5/13/19
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Hi Marius

Speak to the ZGlue as I understand they have implemented a full Ble and WiFi stack for nrf. It is build on Nuttx.

Kind regards

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Matias N.

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May 13, 2019, 5:14:23 PM5/13/19
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Hi,
what is the relation of this [1] to what you are discussing? From this page I understand that Nordic did its works based on Zephyr and you can build the corresponding firmware to be flashed on nrf devices, thus exposing an HCI UART interface. Wouldn't this be enough? (I mean, instead of requiring that code by BSD and ported to NuttX)

Best,
Matias

Matias N.

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May 13, 2019, 5:21:16 PM5/13/19
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