Multiprotocol development platform employs Nordic technology to support advanced Bluetooth 5/Bluetooth LE, Thread, and Zigbee smart-home product design

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that France-based smart home and smart building company, NodOn, has selected Nordic’s nRF52840 advanced multiprotocol System-on-Chip (SoC) to provide Bluetooth® 5/Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE), Thread, Zigbee, IEE 802.15.4, and 2.4GHz proprietary wireless connectivity for its ‘NodOn 2.4GHz Platform’.

The platform is designed to provide SMEs with a means to rapidly create and launch wireless smart home products using Bluetooth LE, Thread, or Zigbee protocols under their own name and brand, without the need for time-consuming hardware development work or RF design expertise. Once programmed with the developer’s firmware, the platform can be easily integrated into any of NodOn’s existing white-labeled smart home hardware, for example relay switches for controlling lights, roller shutters, or heating, smart plugs, as well as a range of motion, temperature, and humidity sensor devices. The 2.4GHz Platform also enables voice activation of these products via Amazon Alexa or Apple HomePod.

The development platform is powered by the nRF52840 SoC, which features a powerful 64MHz, 32-bit Arm® Cortex® M4F processor, 1MB Flash memory and 256kB RAM, and a 2.4GHz radio featuring -95dBm RX sensitivity in 1Mbps Bluetooth LE mode and -103dBM sensitivity in 125kbps Bluetooth LE mode (boosting range). These features make the SoC an ideal choice for applications that are complex, processor-intensive, and/or require long range.

Nordic’s nRF52840 multiprotocol SoC is Nordic’s most advanced ultra low power wireless solution. The SoC supports complex Bluetooth LE and other low-power wireless applications that were previously not possible with a single-chip solution. The nRF52840 is Bluetooth 5-, Thread 1.1-, and Zigbee PRO (R21) and Green Power proxy specification-certified and its Dynamic Multiprotocol feature uniquely supports concurrent wireless connectivity of the protocols. The SoC combines the Arm processor with a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio. The chip supports all the features of Bluetooth 5 (including 4x the range or 2x the raw data bandwidth (2Mbps) compared with Bluetooth 4.2). Designed to address the inherent security challenges brought by the IoT, the nRF52840 SoC incorporates the Arm CryptoCell-310 cryptographic accelerator, offering best-in-class security.

The SoC is supplied with Nordic’s S140 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5-certified software protocol stack for building long-range and high-throughput Bluetooth LE applications. The S140 SoftDevice offers concurrent Central, Peripheral, Broadcaster, and Observer Bluetooth LE roles. OpenThread and Zigbee stacks are available through Nordic’s nRF5 Software Development Kit (SDK) for Thread and Zigbee.

“The nRF52840 SoC provides the 2.4GHz Platform with a high degree of customer flexibility due to its multiprotocol support,” says Thomas Gauthier, NodOn CEO. “This makes it possible for our customers to have a qualified and certified end product to market incredibly quickly that is able to answer multiple consumer requirements with minimal investment.

 

“While the platform will initially be deployed on our mains-powered devices, the Nordic SoC’s ultra low power characteristics means we will be able to adapt this platform for our battery-powered sensor devices and deliver a battery lifetime of up to five years depending on the device.”