NRF51822-BEACON: Demo/Development Kit for Bluetooth Smart Beacons

The nRF51822 Bluetooth® Smart Beacon Kit is a reference design that lets you explore the full range of development possibilities for beacons using Bluetooth Smart technology. It consists of hardware, firmware and apps for both iOS and Android on Bluetooth 4.0 enabled smartphones.

It is ultra-compact at 20 mm diameter and can run from CR1632 coin-cell batteries. The kit has two buttons which can be programmed to enable easy switching between modes and/or functionality, as well as an RGB LED which can be configured to indicate different events. Ten GPIO pins are available for expansion and the kit can be connected to an external programmer/debugger during development work. The nRF51822 Bluetooth Smart Beacon Kit also supports complete Over-The-Air (OTA) Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU) for all firmware on the nRF51822 chip.

KEY FEATURES of nRF51822

• Multiprotocol 2.4GHz radio

• 32-bit ARM Cortex M0 processor

• 256kB/128kB flash and 32kB/16kB RAM

• Software stacks available as downloads

• Pin compatible with other nRF51 Series devices

• Application development independent from protocol stack

• Fully on-air compatible with nRF24L Series

• Programmable output power from +4dBm to -20dBm

• RSSI

• RAM mapped FIFOs using EasyDMA

• Dynamic on air payload length up to 256 Bytes

• Flexible and configurable 31 pin GPIO

• Programmable Peripheral Interface - PPI

• Simple ON/OFF global power modes

• Full set of digital interfaces including: SPI/2-wire/UART

• 10-bit ADC

• 128-bit AES ECB/CCM/AAR co-processor

• Quadrature demodulator

• Low cost external crystal 16MHz ± 40ppm

• Low power 16MHz crystal and RC oscillators

• Ultra low power 32kHz crystal and RC oscillators

• Wide supply voltage range (1.8 V to 3.6 V)

• On-chip DC/DC buck converter

• Individual power management for all peripherals

• Package options: 48-pin 6x6 QFN/WLCSP, Thin-CSP