Microcontroller with low power deep sleep and Bluetooth LE for hobbyist? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: YurkshireLad
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2022, 09:33:34 pm
content: I have a couple of boards based on ESP8266s and ESP32s, which I think from memory all include BLE support (on second thoughts, perhaps the ESP8266 doesn't, can't remember). Are there any other recommended alternatives with low power deep sleep and BLE for a hobbyist? I'll stick with the ESPs for now, I'm just curious.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2022, 09:52:27 pm
content: Anything with Nordic nRF52 series. E.g. nRF52840 includes NFC and also USB in addition to Bluetooth LE (or you can use the radio for Zigbee, Shockburst, etc.).It doesn't have wifi, though (given that you mentioned the ESP chips).

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2022, 10:44:18 pm
content: The Nordic parts are good.Otherwise, you have the interesting Ambiq MCUs that are almost impossible to beat in terms of power consumption - Sparkfun have a few boards with those.https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15170https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15574or modules:https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15484Compared to the ESP MCUs, in terms of power draw, it's like an elephant and a mouse. =)

author: lucazader
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 03, 2022, 11:19:41 pm
content: Ill add to the chorus of nordic based parts.Nordic makes quite good ble chips and have lots of good doccumentation, examples and an active forum.There are even some arduino boards that use the nRF chips eg:https://store-usa.arduino.cc/products/arduino-nano-33-bleThe nRF chips have lots of examples with very low power consumption and quite a few examples are targetted to be powered off coincell batteries for multiple years.

author: YurkshireLad
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2022, 12:22:36 am
content: Interesting, thanks all!

author: jnz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2022, 06:21:11 am
content: Nordic for sure.It’s a “simple” chip in that you have like three options for clock speeds and the gist is it’s high or low. Compared to a STM32H7 there are basically no options at all.The BLE stuff isn’t really easy. I’d recommend the Amazon free RTOS port with BLE or Zephyr with that stack. Tough setup though. You need to know quite a bit about BLE before you will have it up and running.

author: rpiloverbd
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2022, 02:35:49 pm
content: RN 4020 is also a good alternative in terms of low power consumption and bluetooth support.https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/2019/05/introduction-to-rn4020.html

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2022, 07:45:12 pm
content: nRF! Good docs, open source libraries and examples. Good peripherals. If you're a hobbyist looking to learn, then open is better as it allows you to dive into details, to see exactly how something is done. You're free to tweak and experiment to see what happens.

author: mblinov
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 07:49:59 pm
content: I've never personally tried it out, but I did come across the Onsemi RSL10 which claims to be "ultra low power" and support Bluetooth 5.2:https://www.onsemi.com/products/wireless-connectivity/wireless-rf-transceivers/rsl10https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/on-semiconductor-rsl10-iot-sensor-dev-kit-ultra-low-power-bluetooth-radio/

author: Renate
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2022, 06:56:05 pm
content: I jumped into this swamp with my eyes closed with the Cypress PSoC4 BLE CYBLE-012011-00 module.They were $10 a pop but available. The "PSoC Creator" has a bunch of gotchas, but once you get acclimated the water is not bad.Eventually I ended up with something behaving exactly as I wanted.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2022, 07:03:20 pm
content: Quote from: mblinov on January 13, 2022, 07:49:59 pmIt's a pretty good option, but I would not put it first on the list for hobbyist projects.