Toys & gaming
Wireless is a natural fit for toys and gaming.
Nordic-powered Bluetooth 5 gaming keyboard provides increased responsiveness and minimizes keystroke errors to deliver portable solution for serious gamers
The ‘BETOP K1’ mechanical keyboard employs Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC to provide Bluetooth Low Energy wireless connectivity and extend battery life up to 30 hours between recharge
Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Guangzhou Pinzhong Electronic & Tech Co. (Betop), a Guangdong, China-based game controller developer, has selected Nordic’s nRF52832 Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) System-on-Chip (SoC) for its ‘BETOP K1’ mechanical keyboard for gaming- and office-based applications.
The BETOP K1 is said to be the only mechanical keyboard to support Bluetooth 5, employing the Nordic SoC to provide wireless connectivity between the keyboard and iOS and Android Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphones and tablets. The nRF52832 SoC provides Bluetooth 5 support including 2x on-air raw data bandwidth (2Mbps), allowing faster data transfer between the keyboard and the user’s device, as well as increased responsiveness.
The keyboard has been developed specifically for smartphone and tablet gaming and is compatible with most leading mobile-based games. The reduced 61-key format allows for a 291 by 101 by 39mm form factor—making it small enough to be portable—while n-key rollover functionality improves typing speed and accuracy, as each key is scanned completely independently by the keyboard hardware so each keypress is correctly detected regardless of how many other keys are being pressed or held down simultaneously.
The BETOP K1 is said to be the only mechanical keyboard to support Bluetooth 5, employing the Nordic SoC to provide wireless connectivity between the keyboard and iOS and Android Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphones and tablets. The nRF52832 SoC provides Bluetooth 5 support including 2x on-air raw data bandwidth (2Mbps), allowing faster data transfer between the keyboard and the user’s device, as well as increased responsiveness.
The keyboard has been developed specifically for smartphone and tablet gaming and is compatible with most leading mobile-based games. The reduced 61-key format allows for a 291 by 101 by 39mm form factor—making it small enough to be portable—while n-key rollover functionality improves typing speed and accuracy, as each key is scanned completely independently by the keyboard hardware so each keypress is correctly detected regardless of how many other keys are being pressed or held down simultaneously.
Nordic’s development tools and reference designs ensure easy development
Alex Chan, Betop
The keyboard is powered by a 1000mAh rechargeable battery, providing approximately 30 hours of continuous operation when the backlight is off, thanks in part to the ultra low power consumption 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 SoC is a powerful multiprotocol SoC ideally suited for Bluetooth LE and 2.4GHz ultra low-power wireless applications. The nRF52832 combines an 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.
The SoC is supplied with Nordic’s S132 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5-certifed RF software protocol stack for building advanced Bluetooth LE applications. The S132 SoftDevice features Central, Peripheral, Broadcaster and Observer Bluetooth LE roles, supports up to twenty connections, and enables concurrent role operation.
“We selected Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC for its stable performance and wide compatibility,” says Alex Chan, Betop Product Manager. “Nordic’s development tools and reference designs ensure easy development, while the ability to perform over-the-air firmware upgrades was equally important.”
