It binds us. It connects us. It gives us knowledge. It’s omnipresent and omniscient. It’s… Wi-Fi.
Well. Sometimes we forget that Wi-Fi signals and connectivity still require a much underappreciated and most needed component –
The Ethernet cable.
Your mobile connectivity has to come from some sort of wireless hub, which is connected to either an Ethernet or fibre-optic cable these days. For this post, we’re looking at the standard Ethernet cable used for VoIP phones, routers, switches, hubs, servers, computers, network printers and more. To the casual user, these cables come in a confusing array of choices.
However, there is, in fact, a difference between all those network cables. They look and any of them will plug into an Ethernet port, but they do have some differences on the inside.
So let’s say you need to get some new cable to setup a small home network, and you walk into a gadget store and say “Hi, I’d like to get some computer cable”.
That’s not going to be helpful. The differences between each type of cable are due to various network standards. Here’s what you need to know about how they’ll affect the speed of your home or work network:
Cat5 – Oldest type and slowest – Category 5 cabling, also known as Cat5, was made to support theoretical speeds of 10-100Mbps (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX). Since Cat5 is an older type of cabling, you probably won’t see it much in stores, but you may have gotten some with an older router or another networking device. Most Cat5 cables are unshielded, relying on the balanced line twisted pair design and differential signaling for noise rejection. Cat5 has been superseded by the CAT5e (enhanced) specification.
Cat5e – Faster with less interference – Category 5 enhanced cabling is an improvement on Cat5 cabling. It was made to support up to 1000 Mbps gigabit speeds, so in theory, it’s faster than Cat5. It also cuts down on crosstalk, which is the interference you can sometimes get between wires inside the cable. Both of these improvements mean you’re more likely to get a faster, more reliable speed out of Cat5e cabling compared with Cat5. This is the most common cable that is in use today.
More details of a Cat5e cable’s specifications can found here.
Cat6 – Consistent gigabit speeds – Category 6 cabling is the next step up from Cat5e, and includes a few more improvements. It has even stricter specifications when it comes to interference, and is even capable of 10-Gigabit speeds.
It’s used in large networks, small data centers and in a business environment. You probably won’t use these speeds at home, and the extra interference improvements won’t make a huge difference in regular usage, but if you’re purchasing a new cable, you might want to consider Cat6 for future upgradability.
One thing to note with extra shielding, Cat6 cables are slightly thicker and slightly less pliant, meaning they won’t bend around corners or coil as easily as compared with Cat5 cables.
Cat 6a (Augmented) – Server-type cables – These cables are the fastest and most expensive cables available for the highest consistent speeds in server farms, network servers and distributed / parallel computing applications.
All cables are backward compatible, meaning the higher categories can work with the lower categories of Ethernet. An interesting thing to note is that there are other categories of cable, Cat7-8, but they are not recognized by the TIA/EIA and few manufacturers make them.
So Which Should You Use?
It’s important to note that your network speed is different than your internet speed. Chances are, upgrading your cables isn’t going to make a difference in how fast you load that YouTube video. Your ISP speeds are likely to be much slower than your network. But if you are transferring files between computers (i.e. you’re backing up to a NAS) or streaming videos, then using gigabit-compatible hardware will speed up access time, but your router and computer ports should be gigabit-compatible as well, otherwise, the bottle neck is just shifted elsewhere. Also, if you’re running cable throughout your house, you may notice a decrease in speeds if you are using cables longer than 100 meters.
What type of cable are you using?
The printed text on the cable will usually give you some clues. In this example, the similar color arrangement of the cable tells us that the cable is a straight cable.
Straight and crossover cables are wired differently from each other. One way to tell what you have is to look at the order of the coloured wires inside the plastic RJ-45 housing. The RJ-45 connector is the standard type connector used for Ethernet connections compared with the smaller RJ-11 connections used on telephone cords. Crossover cables are less common and are used in computer-to-computer applications. The more common cable will be a straight cable, where you connect a network device (say a router) to your computer or wireless-access points.
What you can do is put both ends of the cable side by side with the connector facing the same way and see if the order of the wires is the same on both ends. If so, then you have a straight cable. If not, then it’s most likely a crossover cable or was wired wrong.
Our cable reads “CAT5E” “TIA/EIA568B” “4STP” “24AWG”, what it means:
Cat5e Category 5 Enhanced cable
TIA/EIA568B means this cable is compliant to the standards set by Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) of the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) for commercial building cabling, pin/pair assignments for eight-conductor 100-ohm balanced twisted pair cabling. These assignments are named T568B, the latest version is T568C as of 2014, more of this standard here.
4STP means four cables of S = braided shielding (outer layer only), TP = twisted pair. This is a four-wire shielded twisted pair (STP) of wires, more can be read on Ethernet cable construction here.
24AWG denotes how thick the copper wires of the cable are. American wire gauge (AWG) is a standardized gauge system for indicating the diameter of conducting electrical wire and is commonly used among electrical engineers. The rating gives information regarding the resistance of the wire and the allowable current (ampacity) based on plastic insulation. In this case, 24 represents as cross-sectional diameter of 0.51054mm (0.205 mm2) and a copper resistance of 84.22mΩ/m (0.842Ω/metre), which is a typical impedance of 100 ± 15Ω.
Cable health
Ok, now you know a whole lot more about Ethernet cables, you fish out one from the rat’s nest where you’ve stored all the random cables in your house, you find the Ethernet cable and plug it in.
It doesn’t work.
Great, what now? How do you tell if it’s a bad cable?
Wouldn’t it be great to know if the wires inside the cable had broken? Especially if it’s an expensive Cat6 type cable or if the cable is especially long.
We got an RJ-45 network cable tester from Amazon, however, this little gadget isn’t intuitive at all. According to the poorly written manual, the lights will turn on sequentially from 1 to 8 if the tested cable if fully functional. It works sporadically and basically, gives an “OK/NOT OK” binary output by means of a single LED.
Next, we got ourselves RJ-45 punch-down blocks from Amazon, and they were a pain. The clips required pliers to remove and more wires needed to be punched in the teeth before any sort of testing could be done. A real inconvenience.
There must be a better way – so we created a new solution. The easy-to-use RJ-45 Ethernet cable tester for a quick, low-cost, painless way to test your Ethernet cables.
This is as simple as it gets – two RJ-45 receptacles. Plug in your Ethernet cable and use a continuity checker or a Multimeter and you will know if your cable works or is broken.
You can now test the resistances of each point in your cable using your Multi-meter and determine if your cable meets the necessary tolerances. Typical Cat5e cables have a 10ohm/100m conductor resistance, resulting in a 1ohm/10m loop resistance, with tolerances included, you should measure an end-to-end wire resistance of <20 ohms per 100m length, or about 0.2Ω/metre.
Or you could simply do a continuity test to ensure your cables aren’t broken or if there are missing wires. We tested all our Cat5/Cat5e cables, flat, shielded, long and short, in seconds! This nifty gadget was born out of frustration in finding a simple, low-cost means of testing lots of Ethernet cables quickly and easily and our engineers now use it frequently. It’s a must-have for any engineer/technician working with lots of Ethernet cables.
If you liked this post, subscribe with your email below, and we’d love to hear from you, also we’ll be happy to hear suggestions and comments for improvement in the comments section below.
We love taking photos. Wefies. Selfies. You name it. But if you’ve tried to use a smartphone camera in less than optimal lighting conditions, you’ll find your pictures poor and unworthy of that coveted Facebook post. A problem we often face when taking a selfie is that besides having a poor front-facing camera on a typical smartphone, there isn’t a front-facing LED flash! That means unflattering and poorly-lit selfies.
The reason is that complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) photo-sensors used to fit in the smaller confines of a smartphone generally have poor performance in low-light conditions. The difference is noticeable if you compare the quality of photos taken with a DSLR versus a smartphone. The smaller sensors deployed in a smartphone have less area to collect light. A larger DSLR will accommodate a larger sensor, and, in turn, a larger sensor will collect more light to produce a better image. This is why the number of pixels doesn’t matter. A camera with a large or more-sensitive sensor will produce superior results over any smartphone with a small sensor, even if both tout the same number of megapixels.
With a small sensor, the pixels can’t capture as much light, so a smartphone camera will produce images that have less vibrant colours than a DSLR. A camera with a smaller sensor will also produce images with more noise, especially at high ISO. Of course, the trade-off in image quality means more convenience. We don’t always carry a bulky DSLR wherever we go, but the ubiquitous smartphone is now an extension of our modern lives. How can we get better pictures in poor lighting conditions without modifying our smartphones or lugging a DSLR everywhere?
The solution? Add more light to your scene or subject; behold, Portable light prototyping for smartphone photography.
There are many pocketable lighting options which promise smartphone-friendly illumination. They range from essential LED lights to more sophisticated gizmos which your smartphone can control.
The Pocket Spotlight is the simplest of the lot as a simple array of 32 LEDs. Gizmag gave it a positive review, and it does what it’s advertised for US$30 – plug into your smartphone for extra light.
The Nova and iblazr2, on the other hand, have more features. The Nova Bluetooth iPhone flash is a credit card-shaped Bluetooth-controlled LED flash consisting of 40 warm and cool LEDs. A notable feature is that temperature and brightness can be controlled from the free Nova Camera app, which is especially useful for shooting objects with a warmer or cooler colour tone. It’s compatible with iPhones, from the iPhone 4s onwards. Up to 10 units can be simultaneously triggered for more advanced lighting setups, given its slim, compact and pocket-friendly design with colour temperature adjustments.
The iblazr is also an LED flash and constant light for your smartphone, only this time it’s not iPhone. The small LED unit attaches to the headphone socket of your iOS (7+), Android (4.0 or higher) and Windows Phone (8. x) smartphone. Like the Nova, the iblazr connects to your phone via Bluetooth, and the accompanying app can adjust brightness and sync with the camera shutter on the device. It is already in its second iteration, with the original retailing for US$40. The new iblazr two is going for US$59.90 and boasts a variable colour temperature from 3200K (warm) to 5600K (excellent), which can be adjusted in the accompanying Spotlight app or via a touch sensor on the rear of the device. It offers a very similar performance to the Nova.
The light strip casing is a notable mention that attempts to solve the problem by integrating a ring-light-like construction into the phone’s casing. Unfortunately, it means the product obsolesces when the smartphone (iPhone5/5S) is replaced with a newer model. The maker’s Kickstarter campaign was unsuccessful, and lessons can be learned here.
All these external lights have one thing in common; they offer diffused lighting to illuminate a subject and are typically targeted at smartphone photography. Nova and iblazr offer nifty features such as Bluetooth connectivity and light temperature control, giving portrait shots warmer tones.
Colour temperature
For lighting frequently used for portrait shots on faces (for example, selfies and wefies), it is essential to have a feature for selective temperature colour for your light source. Nova and iblazr offer this feature. A helpful article on the effects of light temperatures on face shots is covered in an article here.
What’s still lacking?
With that said, USD$60 for a simple light source can prove a tad pricey for the average user or teenager, especially when he has spent his savings on the latest iPhone 6 Plus.
A flash can be surprisingly harsh (especially on the iPhone) and momentary. The Pocket Spotlight’s constant light acts as a floodlight, allowing a user to illuminate a scene where focus and exposure could be adjusted before the shot. Still, it doesn’t have dual-tone colour temperatures for warmer lighting. The Nova is an excellent bet, but it is currently compatible with iOS7 or later and has only flash functionality, while iblazr has 4 LEDs (just two more than an iPhone 6) which doesn’t add all that much light.
We decided to put together a DIY light prototype with minimal hassle and just spare parts around the lab; a quick DIY lighting source can be put together. Here’s what we did:
For power, a spare USB power bank lying around would do nicely, giving a reliable, regulated 5V power source up to 2A, which allows 10W of power to be drawn since the LEDs we’ve selected are power-hungry.
Rummaging through the storage for LEDs revealed a few versatile, low-cost chip-on-board (COB) LED modules, in which multiple LED elements are directly mounted on a substrate and encased in epoxy. COB case-less LEDs enable a much denser LED array of light compared with traditional surface-mounted device LEDs. More on COB-type LEDs here. The LED module selected is a 6-7V, 3-Watt COB LED Strip outputting 250 lumens of 3500K warm light and another strip providing 300 lumens of 6000K cool white light. Since the LEDs are rated at 6-7V, higher than the 5V of the power bank, we used an LM2577S-based DC-DC step-up voltage regulator to boost the voltage to about 6.5 volts.
I am testing the DC-DC boost converter from a 5V power source.
The metallic casing of the power bank would conveniently act as a heat sink for the LEDs.
Power is drawn directly from the USB port using a slim printed circuit board (PCB).
Soldering all the wires together with two switches, one for ON/OFF, the other a selector between the two LED colour temperatures. Everything is held down by glue.
The LEDs are mounted with some thermal paste onto the power bank and epoxied down.
And she lives! It wasn’t much work, and the whole ghetto setup works just fine.
It gets a little warm to touch after a while, so we wrapped it up in faux leather.
A couple of hours later, all ghetto, DIY and dandy!
Works great!
A couple of test shots of random stuff lying around the lab.
Let’s see how our DIY light source fares against LED flashes of smartphones. An Apple iPhone 5S outputs a mere 60 Klux, the iPhone6 Plus at 67 Klux and an HTC One about 107 Klux.
Our DIY light blows the darkness away! One single cool-white COB-LED gives us approximately 360 Klux of light, while two warm-white COB LEDs output ~240 Klux of light. That’s three to four times brighter!
Our DIY, rapidly-made, simple dual-colour temperature (3000K, warm) and (6500K, excellent) light source for off-camera photography! It doubles nicely as a portable lamp, too, to charge. Simply plug in any micro-USB cable 5V USB power source. Add light to your photos anytime, anywhere. All in all, the development cost of this project is about US$15 for a power bank, US$3 for a DC-DC regulator module, US$2/COB LED, $0.10 switches wires and miscellaneous, which works out to be about 20 dollars project.
Not as low-cost as we would have liked, but it was fun, and actual BOM could be further decreased without all that bulk from the parts we used. A $10-$15 price for such a gadget could be very feasible.
Nevertheless, we’re now the proud owners of a nifty dual-tone light source for all the selfies and wefies we will take.
Drop us a comment if you like this post, and if you’re interested in obtaining a portable light source of your own, we would be happy to run a small production run of such light gadgets with enough interest.
You’re likely to own a Bluetooth-enabled device by now – your phone is one. Bluetooth-enabled connectivity exists in a variety of consumer electronics and has become a socially understood means of convenient wireless communications.
Bluetooth capability can be found in almost every decent smartphone, tablet, wireless mp3 speaker and in-vehicle entertainment system to even household appliances like a rice cooker or refrigerator.
However, did you know that there are many versions of Bluetooth? Since its inception, Bluetooth has been a wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances via small Personal Area Networks (PANs) and it has evolved over the years with newer functionality and capabilities that consumers know little about.
Bluetooth has now evolved to Bluetooth 4.0 standards and beyond – also known as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE4.0), Bluetooth® Smart or simply “BLE” or BLE4.0.
Bluetooth Smart Technology: Powering the Internet of Things
As consumers demand longer battery life from their mobile devices and the power efficiency of communication modules has come under scrutiny, a device with Bluetooth connected all day will undoubtedly lead to a decrease in battery life. Bluetooth® Smart is the intelligent, power-friendly version of Bluetooth wireless technology.
Bluetooth® Smart is a new generation of Bluetooth connectivity with enhanced power efficiencies targeted at mobile battery-powered applications, yet retaining its ability to be backwards-compatible with all other versions of legacy Bluetooth. You can pair existing Bluetooth headsets with a new smartphone or tablet you already own or new Bluetooth headsets with older mobile devices.
Now, because of BLE, consumers are seeing everyday objects featuring Bluetooth connectivity. Developers are attempting to make devices “smart” by incorporating Bluetooth, and today we start to see smart locks such as SKYLOCK and Noke lock marketed with BLE-enabled features.
New applications have also been made possible with BLE. Ever forgotten where you placed your keys at home? Tile is one such product targeted at short-distance location-tracking. Consumer reaction has been somewhat lukewarm, but that hasn’t stopped similar products from popping up, such as Lupo, Pebblebee, Hipkey and XYfindit just to name a few.
With BLE’s ability to connect to smartphone apps seamlessly; developers and sports and fitness companies are empowered to integrate this new technology. The market is now seeing a wide range of devices such as Bluetooth-connected heart-rate monitors, clothing and even running footwear.
What does this mean?
The world is exploding with an incredible array of devices connected via BLE. Everyday appliances and devices can now be seamlessly connected to a control device – the most ubiquitous is your smartphone and this development is accelerating the growth of the Internet of things (IoT).
Research companies Cisco, Texas instruments and ABI Research project that some 30 billion to 50 billion devices will enter into the IoT ecosystem by 2020. What this means is that IoT will have a tremendous impact on businesses, consumers and everyday life.
These newly connected devices will produce new types of data that will, in turn, produce new information and knowledge that enable a gain in business efficiencies and enhance customer and consumer satisfaction. IoT will also have a profound impact on people’s lives. It will improve public safety, transport, and healthcare with better information and faster access to this information.
Imagine waking up for a run listening to music with headphones that monitor your heart rate and pace. Your smart-toothbrush will have sensors and algorithms that monitor the state of your dental health. These Bluetooth-connected devices are targeted at reducing wire clutter while allowing you to benefit from the convenience, empowerment, and freedom of BLE technology.
Developing with Bluetooth Smart
As a developer, Bluetooth® Smart is a powerful technology enabler limited only by your imagination and creativity. What are the advantages of BLE over legacy Bluetooth 2.0?
Reduced power consumption – BLE4.0’s Ultra-low peak, average and idle mode power consumption consumes half as much energy when active and transmitting, and 1/100th the energy when in sleep mode. This means longer battery life for mobile devices with an ability to operate for months or years on standard coin-cell batteries. In many cases, it makes it possible to operate these devices for more than a year without recharging.
Enhanced range – The majority of Bluetooth devices on the market today include the basic – 10m range of the Classic Bluetooth radio, but there is no limit imposed with BLE. Manufacturers may choose to optimize a range of 50m and beyond, particularly for in-home sensor applications where a longer range is a necessity. Increased modulation index provides a possible range for BLE of over 100m.
Simplified pairing process – Pairing is now quicker (down to 0.1s instead of 2.0s) and can be done from within an iOS app (instead of having to go through Settings). No complicated handshaking. Just press a button within the app – you’re paired!
Background operation – Once paired, the Bluetooth device can wake up the mobile device with a pop-up notification or an interrupt, even when the app is in the background.
Convenient data retrieval – Obtaining data is no longer constrained by the Classic Bluetooth profiles or Apple’s proprietary 32-pin connector and its expensive MFi Program, which in turn results in a shorter, simpler and cheaper development cycle.
Backward compatibility – BLE allows two types of implementation, dual-mode and single-mode and the resulting architecture shares much of Classic Bluetooth technology’s existing radio and functionality resulting in a minimal cost increase compared to Classic Bluetooth technology. Manufacturers can also use current Classic Bluetooth technology (Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR or Bluetooth v3.0 + HS) chips with the new low-energy stack, enhancing the development of Classic Bluetooth-enabled devices with new capabilities.
Frequency hopping – BLE uses the adaptive frequency hopping common to all versions of Bluetooth technology to minimize interference from other technologies in the 2.4 GHz ISM Band. Efficient multi-path benefits increase the link budgets and range.
Host control – BLE also places a significant amount of intelligence in the controller, which allows the host to sleep for longer periods of time and be woken up by the controller only when the host needs to perform some action. This allows for the greatest current savings since the host is assumed to consume more power than the controller.
Low latency – BLE can support connection setup and data transfer as low as 3 milliseconds, allowing an application to form a connection and then transfer authenticated data in a few milliseconds for a short communication burst before quickly tearing down the connection.
Robustness – BLE uses a strong 24-bit CRC on all packets ensuring the maximum robustness against interference.
Strong security – Full AES-128 encryption using CCM to provide strong encryption and authentication of data packets.
Common terms discussed amongst developers dabbling in BLE:
Universally unique identifier (UUID) – UUID is typically a 128-bit identifier standard used in software construction, however, Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has a set of defined services and descriptors in a 16-bit address specific to Bluetooth. Any value with a UUID can be listed as an attribute which refers to specific Bluetooth services and characteristics.
Generic Access Profile (GAP) – Controls connections and advertising in Bluetooth. GAP is what makes a device visible to the outside world, and determines how two devices interact with each other. GAP typically defines various roles for devices and identifies which device is ‘central’ and which is peripheral. Peripheral devices are small, low-power, resource-constrained devices that can connect to a much more powerful central device. Examples of peripheral devices are devices like a smartwatch, heart-rate monitor or smart proximity tracking tag. A central device will refer to a smartphone or tablet with more processing power and memory size. More information here.
Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) – A GATT is a collection of services of the characteristics and relationships to other services that encapsulate the behaviour of part of a device. GATT tables describe how data is exchanged once the device is connected; more information here.
Services – this refers to what kind of information is being transmitted; is its battery life or heart rate?
Characteristic/descriptors – this refers to a specific value type, a string value or an integer, or a character, and characteristically contains read/write/notify properties; more information here.
In other words, a GATT holds several services, where the services, in turn, hold several characteristics or descriptors.
What is the difference between Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart Ready and Bluetooth Smart?
The terminology might seem confusing; let’s simplify it.
Bluetooth Smart Ready: Connects with both Bluetooth Classic & Bluetooth Smart devices and is sometimes called dual-mode. This represents devices with both BLE4.0 and legacy protocols; most new tablets and smartphones are as such. BLE smart ready has the advantage of utilizing classic Bluetooth profiles which have a higher data bandwidth when compared to BLE4.0.
Bluetooth Classic: Used for streaming audio or video to a device (For example a Bluetooth headset), this typically represents older legacy Bluetooth peripherals that are not compatible with BLE4.0-only devices.
Bluetooth Smart: Used for low-energy devices that communicate to smartphones (for Example Apple iBeacon, proximity marketing, and heart rate monitors), these are the new generation of BLE4.0 devices that do not have legacy protocol support.
BLE all around us
Because of this newfound power efficiency and lower cost, the viability of new use cases and applications for Bluetooth that were previously limited have reopened new possibilities.
The battery drain concerns are now largely gone; no longer will Bluetooth be an undermined connection on a mobile device. It will likely become one of the driving forces that will continue to push smartphone innovation along at its current, breakneck pace. Technology manufacturers have embraced the new technology eagerly with Apple first introducing the iPhone4S in 2013 to feature BLE-ready capabilities, and BLE is now standard on most new smartphone entrants to the market.
Because of the major improvements in power consumption, it’s easy to see BLE making a big impact on the Bluetooth accessory market and one very prominent wave is in the personal fitness and health market.
Tens of dozens of fitness trackers now available on the market are mostly empowered by a BLE chip. Xiaomi’s MiBand low-cost fitness tracker sold a sensational 6 million units worldwide and is powered by the Dialog Semiconductor DA14580. The DA14580 boasts ultra-low power consumption giving the Mi Band a previously unheard-of battery life of up to 30 days!
Not to be outdone, electronic giant Texas Instruments has a broad portfolio of BLE chip solutions for various applications such as the Microcontroller-BLE CC2541 found in the Misfit Shine, and a newer generation stand-alone Bluetooth controller, the CC2564 is found in Fitbit Surge fitness watch and Pebble Time smartwatches.
Add BLE to your projects today!
In the next few years, the fight for dominance within embedded BLE will continue apace and is, understandably, a concern for developers and manufacturers. As silicon vendors continue to compete for market share, this then brings into question what level of Bluetooth support customers and engineers can expect. 2015 seems to be just the beginning of a battle for market share among vendors like Silicon Laboratories, which recently purchased BLE module manufacturer, Bluegiga Technologies Inc. Not to be outdone, mobile chip-maker Qualcomm giant has acquired UK-based Bluetooth audio solutions provider Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), for $2.5 billion!
Today, incorporating BLE connectivity into your device or project is a painless process when using ready-made third-party modules allowing a designer to reduce development time and accelerate time-to-market cycles considerably. In selecting a chip for your project, developers are now spoilt for choice; it is comforting to know that there is an extensive portfolio of BLE solution providers on the market. The type of BLE chipset required depends on your intended application. We’ve tested several modules, and have selected a few prominent ones for your consideration.
The major time-saving feature of these BLE modules is that the BLE protocol stack has been designed by the manufacturer and the modules are mostly certified under various regulations in different countries required of Bluetooth devices. Furthermore, to aid development, manufacturers of these modules often provide a list of application program interfaces (API) to get your application up and running quickly.
Texas Instruments
The electronics giant’s pioneering efforts in the adoption of BLE paid off with their CC2540/CC2541 chipset seeing a large adoption in the wearable market, notably with their presence in devices like Fitbit Flex, and Fitbit Surge and the Misfit Shine.
TI’s CC254X series uses a legacy 8051 core if you’re into Embedded C and Embedded Systems Development. With such versatility, third-party companies like Bluegiga have adopted the CC2541 chipset into their BLE113 module, which serves a large community of DIY enthusiasts as well as professionals. Both Texas Instruments and Bluegiga offer development/evaluation kits to aid development. You can purchase Bluegiga’s BLE113 module by itself and fairly inexpensively.
The extensive library of APIs that is provided usually suffices to develop the services you require unless you intend to develop your own proprietary 2.4GHz protocol stack. Bluegiga allows you can create custom BT4.0 profiles using their simple XML language referred to as BGScript.
As previously mentioned, TI now offers a newer CC2564 chipset that is now featured on the Pebble Time watch. The CC2564 is a Bluetooth and Dual-Mode Controller that supports legacy A2DP for audio transmissions (this is what enables your wireless Bluetooth speaker to receive music from your smartphone), as well as Serial Port Profile (SPP) for high throughput serial data communication (notably for the voice recording feature on the Pebble Time sports).
Texas Instruments SensorTag is a reference design kit that quickly enables beginners to overcome their BLE learning curve with a host of development resources available. The SensorTag boasts a plethora of sensors (temperature, humidity, pressure sensors, an accelerometer, gyroscope and a magnetometer), and the data is easily retrievable with its accompanying app.
It also passes federal certification FCC (US) / ETSI (Europe) / IC (Canada) for Radio Frequencies (RF). There is a section detailing the certifications the SensorTag has received and the steps that you can take to certify your own product.
Nordic Semiconductor
Nordic specializes in ultra-low-power performance wireless Systems on Chip (SoC) and connectivity devices for the 2.4GHz ISM band, with power consumption and cost being the main focus areas. With these core focus areas, it’s no wonder Nordic’s BLE solutions have one of the best value-for-money and power efficiencies in their class.
Nordic’s nRF8001 solution is present in Fitbit Flex activity trackers, and key features of the µBlue nRF8001 include:
· Highly integrated single-mode slave solution; · 32-pin 5x5mm QFN package; · Fully embedded radio, link controller, and host subsystem; · Profiles and application examples included within the µBlue SDK™; · Sub 15mA peak current consumption; · Microampere range average current consumption; years of battery operating life for coin cell battery-powered applications (depending on duty cycle).
Fitbit chose to adopt an SoC design. This approach effectively reduces the physical footprint required to allow a smaller device size, which is justified by a sufficient sales volume of more than 900,000 units in just the latter half of 2013.
However, this approach will be more expensive for small-volume developers and Nordic has licensed its technology to dozens of third-party vendors with a large selection of BLE modules utilizing Nordic chipsets that you can consider for your product. The external links provide valuable information on specific features, Minimum Order Quantity (MoQ), sales channels and pricing of respective third-party vendors.
Nordic has also unveiled party Japanese ODM vendors producing BLE modules based on its newer more power-efficient nRF51822 chipset. One module that we’ve used is Fujitsu’s latest MBH7BLZ07 module which is a drop-in solution with an embedded antenna and a footprint size of only 11.5×7.9×1.7mm.
Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR)
CSR has been a world leader in Classic Bluetooth for audio transmission. Your Bluetooth headset is likely powered by a low-cost CSR bluecore chipset.
CSR developed its proprietary aptX advanced audio codec BLE profile that is superior and yet compatible with legacy A2DP for profiles for audio transmission. CSR’s AptX compression algorithm boasts low latency transfer rates suitable for audio applications with the added advantages of superior battery life. However, you will need to license these technologies and they often come with a hefty initial investment if developers choose to adopt the SoC approach.
For other BLE data transfer applications, CSR now offers a broad range of BLE kits, notably the CSR8510 which is a dual-mode BLE that supports both the Classic Bluetooth and new BLE profiles. Some designers prefer to have a Bluetooth® Smart Ready dual mode built into their product for backward compatibility.
With its acquisition by Qualcomm, stand-alone product offerings by CSR might become more B2B focused; however, third-party manufacturers such as Bluegiga’s BT111 module still feature the CSR8510 chipset and in another development in the intense battle for market share dominance, Bluegiga has now been acquired by Silicon Laboratories.
Dialog Semiconductor
Dialog Semiconductor is a UK-based company with customers that include Bosch, Sharp, and Samsung, is a smaller less-known underdog in the market of BLE solution providers.
The company recently gained prominence with the successful adoption by Chinese consumer manufacturing giant Xiaomi. Dialog’s DA14580 powers Xiaomi’s Mi Band activity tracker and by far leads the industry in terms of the lowest current consumption and also sports a very decent Flash and RAM capacity size.
If you’re looking for a certified module option, Murata’s LBCA2HNZYZ module is based on the DA14580 – a tiny 7.4×7.0x1.0mm (requires external crystal though) in size and a great selection for any low-power applications.
Murata’s LBCA2HNZYZ is a Bluetooth® Smart module that supports Bluetooth v4.1 BLE standards. All protocol stacks required for Bluetooth low-energy communication are built in, including various healthcare profiles.
Cypress is an American semiconductor design company and it has been making waves in the area of semiconductor innovation with several big-name company acquisitions and versatile product offerings. They offer memory chips, peripheral controllers, touch sensors and proprietary microcontroller architectures.
Their PSoC 4 BLE and PRoC BLE product portfolio has a very short learning curve for any designers new to BLE and offers a plethora of built-in analogue and digital functionality and features capitalizing on their PSoC’s built-in components (Capacitive sensing, ADC, DAC, Op-amps, RTC, I2C, SPI, UART, USB, etc).
Cypress’s PRoC BLE Module is a tiny 10x10x1.8mm module that has already been certified in the US, Canada, Europe, Japan and South Korea, which is great news for developers and expediting a faster time to market.
These truly “plug-and-play” systems come with high reliability and customizability, and you can easily expand beyond these countries to the other markets which recognize some of these certifications.
Certifications
Consumer safety is of paramount importance and should always be an active consideration for any developer. Devices with communications capabilities could pose potential RF interferences or electromagnetic incompatibilities. Certifications ensure that the product is safe and that the RF energy emitted is harmless to the human body. As such, communications devices are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for consumer consumption within the United States and by European Commission (CE) for usage within the European region.
To get a Bluetooth or other wireless product on the market, there is a range of qualifications and approvals you will need to meet to prove that the products meet wireless standards. This qualification involves both testing and paperwork, which can be a relatively complex and costly process for those unfamiliar with the process. Approvals under wireless and teleregulatory standards cannot be obtained on chips alone; they can only be acquired for complete products or sub-systems/modules.
Today, many of the world’s best-known module manufacturers offer modules. These modules are available with the necessary external circuitry and are either partially or fully qualified (with/without integrated antenna) towards relevant wireless standards.
If it is expected that your product will gain significant market share, it is worthwhile for the company to focus on increasing profit margins and move away from procuring BLE modules to adopt an SoC solution instead and acquire its own certifications.
However, the process of doing so requires dedicated R&D effort, Bluetooth SIG membership registration, a declaration to list its products, and certification of the product with regulatory bodies like FCC and/or CE clearance. Let’s explore the options:
CE marking is mandatory for certain product groups within the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland and Turkey. The manufacturer of products made within the EEA and the importer of goods made in other countries must ensure that CE-marked goods conform to standards. CE in that sense is similar to the FCC’s Declaration of Conformity which is used on certain electronic devices sold in the United States. Most countries recognize these qualifications and thus permit sales of the product in their respective domestic markets (such as Singapore).
Manufacturers and companies typically strive to achieve such FCC or CE (and a less common UL or CSA) certifications on their products prior to global distribution to expedite entry into the target market by conformance to the country’s economic regulations.
More information on certification processes can be found from certifying agencies such as TÜV Rheinland, and from certifying agencies in Singapore including TÜV SÜD PSB, BSI, and SGS.
Summary
As a developer, there’s no shortage of resources and tools to aid you with your BLE development for your next project. Depending on your level of expertise, there are many development kits and modules from various manufacturers to choose from, and should you choose to use a module, beyond the skills already mentioned, you’ll likely need surface mount soldering tools and abilities to build a prototype board. Not sure how to go about it? Give us a buzz and let our experienced team assist you!
When you intend to incorporate BLE into your existing or future designs, decide whether to use an SoC approach or purchase an existing module after weighing the pros and cons ( mode of application, projected volume, target markets, required certifications, etc). Most designers find it easy to define the “what” about their project, but it is always the “how” which is more difficult.
At the highest level, you can go straight to the chips themselves and design your own custom board. As pointed out above, OEM manufacturers offer a variety of cores and features to fit your full custom product design. With the onset of BLE v4.2, faster and higher transfer throughput with security upgrades and lower current consumption are available for future designs.
