Bluetooth LE sensors provide wireless solution for detecting water leaks and monitoring changes in temperature 

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Naperville, IL-based home automation manufacturer, Grid Connect Inc, has selected Nordic’s nRF52832 Bluetooth® Low Energy System-on-Chip (SoC) for its ‘ConnectSense’ Wireless Temperature and Humidity and Water Sensor solutions.

The ConnectSense Bluetooth LE Temperature and Humidity Sensor provides accurate and reliable monitoring of temperature sensitive areas of the home or office, for example wine cellars, IT server rooms, and greenhouses. The ConnectSense Bluetooth LE Water Sensor provides water leak detection anywhere where plumbing needs to be monitored, for example laundry rooms or basements. Both the Temperature and Humidity Sensor and the Water Sensor are Apple HomeKit-compatible.

Sensor parameters and alerts are set using “if/then” rules from the ConnectSense app. The sensor data is automatically synched to iOS Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphones and tablets via the Bluetooth LE wireless link provided by the nRF52832 SoC, notifying the user in the event a water leak is detected, or of changes to the room’s temperature or humidity outside of the set parameters.

Both sensors employ two AAA batteries, providing between eight and 12 months of standard operation between replacement, thanks in part to the ultra low power characteristics of the Nordic nRF52832 SoC.

Nordic’s nRF52832 Bluetooth LE SoC, a member of Nordic’s sixth generation of ultra low power (ULP) wireless connectivity solutions, combines a 64MHz, 32-bit ARM® Cortex® M4F processor with a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio (fully compatible with Bluetooth 4.2, ANT™ and proprietary 2.4GHz RF software) featuring -96dB RX sensitivity, with 512kB Flash memory and 64kB RAM. When launched, the SoC was the world’s highest performance single-chip Bluetooth LE solution, delivering up to 60 percent more generic processing power, offering 10 times the Floating Point performance and twice the DSP performance compared to competing solutions. 

“Although our previous generation sensors supported Wi-Fi, we decided to switch to Bluetooth LE for our new sensors to gain even better power efficiency,” says Adam Justice, Vice President, ConnectSense. “Specifically we selected Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC for its power efficiency and robust SDK [Software Development Kit], which included support for Apple HomeKit’s latest specifications. This is our first experience working with Nordic and we have found the support to be excellent and the engineers to be very responsive. Overall it’s been a great experience.”

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