Bluetooth Low Energy Nordic Semiconductor-powered wireless switch creates power and lighting control points anywhere in the home

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Avon, CT-based, connected home industry leader, iDevices®, has launched ‘Instant Switch™’, which allows the user to create additional power or lighting control points anywhere in the home, without the need for complex installation or wiring. Instant Switch employs Nordic’s nRF52832 System-on-Chip (SoC) to provide Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) wireless connectivity between the device and other iDevices wireless products in the home, as well as to Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphones and tablets.

Designed to mimic a permanently installed light switch, the iDevices Instant Switch can be secured flush to any wall using an adhesive backing, allowing the user to add a power control switch anywhere in their home not currently serviced by an existing light or power switch. Using Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity provided by the Nordic SoC, the iDevices Instant Switch pairs to other iDevices connected home products like dimmer switches, wall switches, outdoor switches, and sockets, allowing the user to remotely activate existing hard-wired power or lighting control points controlled by these devices. All iDevices products, including the Instant Switch, can be controlled from the iDevices Connected app on an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet. The app also provides the option of voice activation via Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit™, or the Google Assistant.

Instant Switch is powered by a single CR2032 coin cell battery, providing up to two years of battery life in standard operation between replacement, due in part to the ultra low power characteristics of the Nordic SoC. The nRF52832 SoC has been engineered to minimize power consumption with features such as the 2.4GHz radio’s 5.5mA peak RX/TX currents and a fully-automatic power management system that reduces power consumption by up to 80 percent compared with Nordic’s nRF51 Series SoCs. The result is a Bluetooth LE solution which offers 58 CoreMark/mA, up to twice as power efficient as competing devices. 

 

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 (supporting Bluetooth 5, 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.

 

The SoC is supplied with Nordic’s S132 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5 qualified RF software protocol stack for building advanced Bluetooth LE applications. The S132 SoftDevice Central, Peripheral, Broadcaster and Observer Bluetooth low energy roles, supports up to twenty connections, and enables concurrent role operation.

 

“Nordic is also an industry leader in technical support, which is extremely important,” says Shawn Monteith, iDevices Chief Technology Officer. “Nordic complements our own commitment to the consumers and businesses that buy our solutions, making them an ideal partner in terms of product performance and support.”