Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi connected smart air-quality solution monitors household air pollution levels

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Yongin, Korea-based technology company, SoluM, has selected Nordic’s nRF52832 System-on-Chip (SoC) to provide the Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) wireless connectivity for ‘Keyco Air’, a Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi smart air-quality monitor.

In operation, Keyco Air is plugged into an existing AC wall socket and employs a total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) sensor to monitor the air, humidity, and temperature parameters in the home, in turn detecting unhealthy or potentially harmful levels of household air pollution, as well as rapid temperature changes caused by, for example, fire or heater defects. Significant household air-quality alerts are then sent to a user’s smartphone—using Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity provided by the Nordic SoC—detailing the specific category, condition, and severity grading of the air pollution alert. The device itself also displays indoor air quality updates using colour LEDs - blinking red for ‘very poor’, red for ‘poor’, purple for ‘moderate’, and blue for ‘fresh’.

Once installed and configured, the smart air-quality monitor can be paired to the user’s Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphone or tablet using low latency Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity provided by the Nordic SoC. From the iOS and Android ‘SoluM Keyco’ app the user can review a range of data related to indoor air quality and other environmental conditions present at the time. The addition of Wi-Fi connectivity enables smartphone connectivity in the event the device is out of Bluetooth LE range.

 

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 

-96dBm 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. Nordic's unique software architecture provides clear separation between the RF protocol software and the developer's application code, easing product development.

 

“We selected the nRF52832 SoC because the solution offered easy-to-use, convenient development tools as well as an optimal low power Bluetooth Low Energy wireless connectivity solution,” says Nam-Min Kim, Manager at SoluM.