Bluetooth Low Energy
The Technology
Efficient, low-cost and interoperable
Bluetooth LE is now standardized in all smart phones, tablets and laptops, in addition wide range of other devices. It has support in iOS and Android, as well as macOS, Windows 10 and Linux.
Bluetooth 5.1
Accurate indoor positioning with Bluetooth
Bluetooth 5.1 introduced a major new feature for Bluetooth Low Energy; Bluetooth direction finding. This feature offers exciting new possibilities for accurate indoor positioning of assets and people in three-dimensional space. Read more about Bluetooth direction finding.
Bluetooth 5
Further and faster with the nRF52 Series
Bluetooth 5 is the most important improvement of the Bluetooth standard since the introduction of Bluetooth LE in Bluetooth 4.0. The new features significantly enhance all applications, and give life to applications that just weren't feasible before. The nRF52 Series SoCs are all Bluetooth 5.
The 2 Mbps mode increases application throughput, up to 1.4 Mbps, enabling streaming and high bandwidth applications. Compared to the 1 Mbps mode, it is much more energy effective, halving the amount of energy per bit, facilitating applications to last longer on the same size battery, or have a smaller and cheaper battery.
Advertising Extensions revolutionizes the broadcasting capabilities of Bluetooth LE devices. Up to 8 times more advertising data can be included in an advertisement. Long Range connection establishment can be done directly. Advertisements can be chained together to broadcast larger advertising data sets.
Channel Selection Algorithm #2 (CSA #2) improves coexistence performance and robustness.
The Long Range mode allows Bluetooth LE devices to communicate further apart and enables complete smart home coverage.
nRF52 Series is Bluetooth 5
Bluetooth 5 feature overview
| Bluetooth 5 | nRF52810 | nRF52811 |
nRF52832 | nRF52840 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Mbps | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CSA #2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Advertising Extensions | Yes *) | Yes | Yes | |
| Long Range | Yes *) | Yes |
Yes *) Software support planned
Bluetooth mesh
Supported by the nRF52 Series
Bluetooth mesh is a state-of-the-art standard that extends the capabilities of Bluetooth to include large-scale networks, supported by the nRF52 Series. Leverage our qualified Bluetooth mesh stack and open source provisioning smart phone apps in your development. Our SoftDevices offers concurrent GATT operation with the Bluetooth mesh stack, providing a phone connectivity option.
Multiprotocol
Bridging technologies with ease
The multiprotocol radios in the nRF52 Series SoCs are flexible enough to dynamically switch between protocols, providing concurrent operation. The most common use case is that you want to leverage the interoperability of Bluetooth LE in a mesh topology, it being Bluetooth mesh, Thread, Zigbee or 2.4 GHz proprietary protocols. We provide the hardware and software that makes it possible.
nRF52 Series Bluetooth Capabilities
Overview
| nRF52810 | nRF52811 |
nRF52832 | nRF52840 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multiprotocol | Bluetooth 5 Bluetooth mesh ANT 2.4 GHz proprietary |
Bluetooth 5.1 802.15.4 ANT 2.4 GHz proprietary |
Bluetooth 5 Bluetooth mesh ANT 2.4 GHz proprietary |
Bluetooth 5 |
| On-Air data rate | 2 Mbps 1 Mbps |
2 Mbps 1 Mbps |
2 Mbps 1 Mbps |
2 Mbps 1 Mbps |
| TX power | +4 dBm | +4 dBm | +4 dBm | +8 dBm |
| 2 Mbps BLE sensitivity | -93 dBm | -93 dBm | -93 dBm | -92 dBm |
| 1 Mbps BLE sensitivity | -96 dBm | -97 dBm | -96 dBm | -95 dBm |
| Long range BLE sensitivity | - | -104 dBm | - | -103 dBm |
| Security | 128-bit AES CCM | 128-bit AES CCM | 128-bit AES CCM | 128-bit AES CCM Cryptocell |
| NFC | - | - | NFC-A Tag | NFC-A Tag |
Explore our SoC series
Recommended for Bluetooth Low Energy designs
Bluetooth Software
SoftDevices, SDKs and Development Tools
SoftDevices are wireless protocol stacks that complement the nRF5 Series SoCs, provided as qualified, pre-compiled binaries. They make it possible to have 20 concurrent links in any role combination, application throughput up to 1.4 Mbps, Long Range and multiprotocol.
SDKs provide application examples and peripheral drivers, showing you have to use our hardware and SoftDevices.
Development tools help you to evaluate and test that your application.
Read more about our Bluetooth Software here.