"There is no doubt that 2015 is a year when intelligent hardware devices bloom everywhere. Presumably, this situation will continue in 2016. At present, intelligent hardware products mainly use two communication schemes, WiFi and low-power Bluetooth. Some time ago, Aiban compared some WiFi modules on the market (WiFi scheme comparison) to facilitate your selection and reference. Today, let's take a look at the low-power Bluetooth schemes or products encountered in recent years (at the end of the article, there is a comparison table of various low-power Bluetooth schemes).
Ti CC254x
Ti's cc254x series low-power Bluetooth scheme is mature. It can realize a complete communication scheme with only a few external components. There are still a large number of users in China. The typical representatives in this series are cc2540 and cc2541. Their performance is similar, but the former supports USB function, while the latter supports I2C and 2.4G RF system except low-power Bluetooth communication. When designing low-power Bluetooth scheme, regardless of USB function or I2C interface, they can be pin-to-pin compatible in hardware.
These two Bluetooth wireless MCU products are packaged in 6mm * 6mm qfn-40. Ti officials also provide corresponding development boards and learning references. It is very convenient for engineers who want to learn or develop. Moreover, there are many ready-made hardware products based on Ti cc254x series on the market, such as AI Guoji egg (cc2541) disassembled by aiban.com.
Intelligent object finder (cc2541)
Lianai smart Bracelet (cc2541)
Misfit shine Bracelet (cc2541)
Bluetooth development board recommendations:
Low power Bluetooth Kit One for Bluetooth ® Low energy (ble) connected demo plug-in for portable medical and fitness equipment.
Rn52 Bluetooth Audio Development Kit One contains the hardware module you need to evaluate rn52 Bluetooth audio. It allows designers to prototype boards quickly and easily.
Bcm92073x Low Power Bluetooth development kit A card that can be used in heart rate monitor, pedometer, door lock, light, proximity alarm and other equipment.
Ibeacon function based device (cc2540) Taobao
Imagic Bluetooth smart LED light generation 1 (cc2540)
Imagic Bluetooth smart LED light generation 2 (cc2540)
From the above schemes, it is not difficult to find that cc254x series low-power Bluetooth communication scheme is widely loved by domestic manufacturers. It has reliable and stable communication quality, single-chip SOC, no external MCU, few external components and simple hardware design, which greatly shortens the cycle from R & D to listing.
Note: the cc254x series also updates the first high-temperature Bluetooth intelligent wireless microcontroller cc2540t, with a wide temperature range from - 40 ℃ to 125 ℃ and stronger reliability. And the simplelink Bluetooth low-energy wireless microcontroller cc2541-q1 for automobiles, which can be applied to tire pressure monitoring, remote keyless entry, sensor nodes, etc.
Nordic nRF51822、nRF8001
Nordic is a fabless semiconductor design company in Norway. It specializes in ultra-low power consumption (ULP) short-range wireless communication in the frequency band of 2.4GHz and below 1GHz. I believe you are no stranger to its nrf24l Series RF chips. Nrf51822 and nrf8001 are common low-power Bluetooth communication schemes in the market. The difference is that nrf51822 is the first multi protocol Bluetooth / 2.4GHz special RF SOC chip of Nordic's new nrf51 series, which integrates a new 2.4GHz multi protocol RF transceiver and a 32-bit arm Cortex-M0 core; Nrf8001 is Nordic's µ blue series products. It belongs to a single Bluetooth connection chip. As a complete low-power Bluetooth communication scheme, it needs an external MCU. It can be said that these two products are not good or bad, but to meet the different needs of developers.
Its typical applications are as follows:
Estimote beacon equipment products (nrf51822)
Tile lost Finder (nrf51822)
Bluetooth development board recommendations:
Low power Bluetooth Kit One for Bluetooth ® Low energy (ble) connected demo plug-in for portable medical and fitness equipment.
Rn52 Bluetooth Audio Development Kit One contains the hardware module you need to evaluate rn52 Bluetooth audio. It allows designers to prototype boards quickly and easily.
Bcm92073x Low Power Bluetooth development kit A card that can be used in heart rate monitor, pedometer, door lock, light, proximity alarm and other equipment.
Bong Bracelet (nrf51822)
Fitbit flex Bracelet (nrf8001)
Jawbone's up Bracelet (nrf8001)
Bluetooth development board recommendations:
Low power Bluetooth Kit One for Bluetooth ® Low energy (ble) connected demo plug-in for portable medical and fitness equipment.
Rn52 Bluetooth Audio Development Kit One contains the hardware module you need to evaluate rn52 Bluetooth audio. It allows designers to prototype boards quickly and easily.
Bcm92073x Low Power Bluetooth development kit A card that can be used in heart rate monitor, pedometer, door lock, light, proximity alarm and other equipment.
CSR CSR1010
CSR is a fabless semiconductor manufacturer located in Cambridge, UK. Its main product line is single-chip Bluetooth chip and GPS chip. Csr1010 belongs to CSR μ Energy series of low-power Bluetooth products. However, the ROM of csr1010 is relatively small. Although the internal integrated 16 BOT Xap RISC CPU is not as fast as arm Cortex-M0, it is faster than ti's cc254x 8051, and the openness of data is not as good as Ti. It is more suitable for engineers with low-power Bluetooth development experience.
Representative product: Nike fuelband smart Bracelet
EM microelectronics em9301
Domestic users may not know much about EM microelectronics, a semiconductor company under Swatch Group, and a major supplier of analog and mixed signal semiconductors in ultra-low power applications.
Em9301 is a single Bluetooth 4.0 low power communication chip (the principle block diagram is as follows), which integrates host control interface (HCI). An external MCU is required to establish a complete low-power Bluetooth communication scheme. It has the characteristics of low voltage and low power consumption.
Representative product: flashchip pedometer
Dialog DA14580
Dialog is no stranger to you, especially the advent of its da14580 low-power Bluetooth chip. It's really amazing. If a friend asks me what impressed me most about da14580? That is undoubtedly its low power consumption, which is really low enough to have no opponent.
If you take a closer look at the introduction of dialog, you can probably understand that it is a semiconductor manufacturer that mainly provides power management chips and embedded solutions to equipment manufacturers. It is really easy to optimize power consumption.
Representative products: Needless to say, Xiaomi bracelet is a bug in the sales history of smart bracelets in China（ I really don't understand why so many people buy it. Is it really the reason why it's cheap? Buy one for fun?)
Bluetooth development board recommendations:
Low power Bluetooth Kit One for Bluetooth ® Low energy (ble) connected demo plug-in for portable medical and fitness equipment.
Rn52 Bluetooth Audio Development Kit One contains the hardware module you need to evaluate rn52 Bluetooth audio. It allows designers to prototype boards quickly and easily.
Bcm92073x Low Power Bluetooth development kit A card that can be used in heart rate monitor, pedometer, door lock, light, proximity alarm and other equipment.
NXP QN9021
The qn9021 low-power single-chip Bluetooth communication SOC of NXP (NXP) includes an arm Cortex-M0 processor and single-mode Bluetooth 4.0ble (as shown in the hardware system block diagram below). The chip adopts a compact qfn32 package with a size of 5mm * 5mm. Only a few external components are required to build a Bluetooth communication solution, While saving cost, it also greatly reduces the space layout of PCB.
Representative product: fireble board
Broadcom bcm20737s
Broadcom's low-power Bluetooth communication scheme bcm20737s is also a "bug". It adopts a 6.5mm * 6.5mm SIP package. It not only integrates Bluetooth antenna, 24MHz high-speed clock, 512KB EEPROM, but also integrates a software stack compatible with the latest low-power Bluetooth 4.1. The hardware design is simple to speechless, which is the simplest low-power Bluetooth communication scheme the author has seen.
Representative products: Broadcom wicedsense development kit is not only a development kit, but also a prototype of anti loss devices, pedometers and other products. It is a universal intelligent hardware product.
Cypress psoc4 ble and proc ble
Cypress's psoc4 ble (such as cy8c4247lqi-bl483) and proc ble (cybl10563-56lqxi) are single-chip low-power Bluetooth communication solutions based on 48mhz arm Cortex-M0 processor. They both integrate the same ble RF, so their RF parameters and power consumption are consistent. In addition, they both integrate CapSense, LCD driver and other functions, The difference is that cy8c4247lqi-bl483 is more flexible and pays more attention to analog function integration, such as DAC, low-power comparator, operational amplifier, etc.
Representative product: Cypress cy8ckit-042-ble pioneer kit development kit
Ez-ble pres module cyble-022001-00 module (cyble-022001-00 module is a low-power Bluetooth module based on cypress pres ble. It is very small, only 10mm * 10mm, which is almost 1 / 3 of the current dime).
Looking at so many low-power Bluetooth communication solutions, from the products I know so far, the proportion of Ti and nodic's low-power Bluetooth solutions is still very large. Finally, we summarize the low-power Bluetooth solutions in the article and compare the performance, price and other parameters of each scheme for your reference. See the following table for details (click the picture to enlarge).
Seriously, each of the above low-power Bluetooth schemes has its own flash point. In the birth process of the actual product, the hardware scheme is important, but it is not the only one. In fact, in the eyes of users, the most intuitive feeling is the appearance and function of the product. Especially in the era of intelligent hardware, the product usually needs to be equipped with corresponding excellent app. A convincing product is no longer a simple hardware solution. We can make the same product with different hardware solutions, and we can also build different products with the same solution. Finally, the product that can capture the user's heart is nothing more than a good idea + a good hardware solution + appearance burst table.
If you have any good low-power Bluetooth communication scheme, you can leave a message and recommend it to you.
Bluetooth development board recommendations:
Low power Bluetooth Kit One for Bluetooth ® Low energy (ble) connected demo plug-in for portable medical and fitness equipment.
Rn52 Bluetooth Audio Development Kit One contains the hardware module you need to evaluate rn52 Bluetooth audio. It allows designers to prototype boards quickly and easily.
Bcm92073x Low Power Bluetooth development kit A card that can be used in heart rate monitor, pedometer, door lock, light, proximity alarm and other equipment.
Original statement: This article is original by Aiban. Reprint is declined“
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