Wireless smart occupancy platform employs Nordic Bluetooth LE technology

The Ding Ding Ting Che, parking

The Ding Ding Ting Che parking locks use Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF51822 SoC to provide wireless connectivity to devices running the parking finder and navigation app.

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Beijing Tong Yu Dao Technology Co., Ltd, a Chinese intelligent parking solutions company, has selected Nordic’s multiple award-winning nRF51822 Bluetooth® Low Energy System-on-Chip (SoC) for its parking space occupancy platform, ‘Ding Ding Ting Che’. The platform allows owners of parking spaces to rent and share their vacant spaces with drivers looking for an available parking spot via the Ding Ding Ting Che app. The app allows drivers to view available parking spaces, and navigate to them, in real-time.

In operation, a 6V 7Ah lead acid battery-powered ‘smart’ parking lock device is bolted into the parking space and can be raised and lowered automatically to prevent unauthorized access to the space, or to grant access to a driver paying to use the parking space via the app. When a driver approaches a vacant parking space they can lower the locking mechanism via the app on their device, allowing them to access the space and triggering payment to the parking spot owner.

The smart parking lock employs Nordic’s nRF51822 SoC to provide Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity between the ground lock and the driver’s iOS- or Android-compatible Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphone or tablet. 

Quote
After considering other low power wide area networks as wireless connectivity options, we decided Bluetooth Low Energy was the best option.
Shen Ao, Beijing Tong Yu Dao Technology Co., Ltd.
Ding Ding Ting Che also supports WeChat, a cross-platform messaging, content sharing, and online payment solution with over 700 million active users, available on almost all smartphones in China. When integrated with WeChat, Ding Ding Ting Che enables social media sharing of available parking spaces.

Nordic’s nRF51822 is a powerful and flexible multiprotocol SoC ideally suited for Bluetooth LE and 2.4GHz ultra low-power wireless applications. The nRF51822 SoC is built around a 32-bit ARM® Cortex™ M0 CPU with 256kB/128kB flash and 32kB/16kB RAM. The embedded 2.4GHz transceiver is fully compliant with Bluetooth 4.2. 

“After considering other low power wide area networks as wireless connectivity options, we decided Bluetooth LE was the best option,” says Shen Ao, founder and CEO of Beijing Tong Yu Dao Technology Co., Ltd. “We selected Nordic’s nRF51822 SoC partly because of its ability to perform secure over-the-air updates and because it supports WeChat hardware. On top of which the support we received from Nordic’s local distributor, and the Nordic Developer Zone really helped us in development.”