Nordic Semiconductor announced that technology company Wonderlabs Limited has selected Nordic's nRF52 and nRF51 series of Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) system-on-chip (SoC) to help its "SwitchBot" smart home ecosystem.
This smart home ecosystem includes SwitchBot curtains integrated with nRF52840 Bluetooth 5.2/Bluetooth low energy advanced multi-protocol SoC and SwitchBot robot integrated with nRF51822 SoC, as well as other smart home devices and peripherals that use Nordic and sensor-based, they can be independent Use or cooperate with each other through a proprietary Bluetooth mesh network solution.
The low-power Bluetooth connection supported by Nordic SoC ensures that SwitchBot products can be wirelessly configured and controlled via the iOS/Android "SwitchBot" application associated with the user's Bluetooth 4.0 (and higher) smartphone. The multi-protocol support function provided by the Nordic solution can work with a proprietary Bluetooth-based mesh network to enable multiple SwitchBot devices to communicate seamlessly in it.
SwitchBot curtain is a 135g, 42 x 51 x 110mm electric device, easy to install, can convert existing curtain rods and track curtains into an automated smart curtain system controlled by a supporting application, which can be controlled by a remote control integrated with nRF52840 SoC It can also be controlled by compatible smart home ecosystems, such as Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri and HomePod, or Google Home. With built-in sensors, the device can arrange to close the curtains at night and open the curtains when it senses sunlight. SwitchBot curtains use a rechargeable 3350mAh lithium-ion battery, and Nordic¡¯s nRF52840 provides comprehensive Bluetooth 5 support for SwitchBot curtains and curtain remotes, including twice the wireless raw data bandwidth (2Mbps), four times the transmission range, and eight times the advertising expansion. The payload size of advertising data packets is increased to 251 bytes) broadcast capability, and improved channel coexistence algorithm.
SwitchBot Bot is a 42g, 42.5 x 36.5 x 24mm automated device that can mechanically turn on/off electrical appliances such as coffee machines that use buttons or rocker switches in the home or office. Users can control the device using the companion app or through the voice control function of the smart home ecosystem. SwitchBot Bot is powered by a CR2 battery and achieves a long battery life of approximately 20 months, partly due to the ultra-low power consumption of the Nordic SoC.
Nordic¡¯s nRF52840 advanced multi-protocol SoC combines a 64MHz, 32-bit Arm Cortex M4 processor with a floating point unit (FPU) and a 2.4GHz multi-protocol radio (supports Bluetooth 5.2, remote, Bluetooth mesh, ANT™, Thread , Zigbee, IEEE 802.15.4, NFC and proprietary 2.4GHz radio frequency protocol software), with 8dBm output power, -95dBm RX sensitivity, link budget of 103dBm, with 1MB flash memory and 256kB RAM. Its dynamic multi-protocol function uniquely supports concurrent wireless connections of these protocols. This SoC has 12Mbps full-speed USB. nRF52840 SoC integrates ARM CryptoCell-310 encryption accelerator, which can provide first-class security for SoC based on Cortex-M.
Nordic recommends using nRF Connect SDK for nRF52840 software development. This software development kit integrates Zephyr RTOS, supports applications using Bluetooth low energy, Bluetooth mesh and Thread, and includes examples, Bluetooth low energy profiles, and driver support for all peripheral devices. This SDK also includes the Nordic Bluetooth SoftDevice controller, which is transplanted from the company to cooperate with the nRF52 series and verified SoftDevice. nRF5 SDK can also be used in conjunction with Nordic Bluetooth radio frequency protocol stack S113, S132 and S140 SoftDevices for product development.
Connery Li, Founder and CEO of Wonderlabs Limited, said: ¡°We chose the Nordic solution for SwitchBot because this chipset has high reliability and low power consumption, and it supports advanced features such as Bluetooth 5 and remote. Moreover, our own The Bluetooth mesh protocol requires multi-protocol support, and it uses on-demand routing instead of flooded broadcast."
"Compared with other semiconductor suppliers, Nordic's sales and support team has a strong technical background and is very professional, able to respond to customer inquiries quickly and effectively."
