Hi,
I'm quit new in this forum and I have the question in subject.
My wonder is how to upgrade Nordic SoC in order to have both BLE and ANT+ connectivity and protocol stack. According to Nordic website it is possible through a specific soft device (S340?) and their own firmware loader but still I don't know how to do it in Arduino Nano 33 BLE.
Finally I'd like a writing code.ino which can operate with either ANT+ or BLE connectivity.
Another question is: is there any Arduino library which support ANT?
Thanks folks
I do not have experience doing what you ask about but this is what I found. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can push the conversation.
I think you have to flash the SoftDevice via an external programmer (eg. JLink edu mini).
Something like this thread
Hope it helps!
ANT+ is owned by Garmin. They are not in the hobby electronics business. I found a post from 2016 on their website pointing to two Github page with the clear message its not an official endorsement. So, as long as you do this for yourself they probably do not mind. If you develop a product you will need to talk to their licensing/lawyers. ![]()
Here are the links to get you started:
Combining ANT+ and BLE is likely a lot harder than you might think if not impossible. You would need to understand the timing requirements for both protocols. Then you would need to find out whether the code fits into the RF module and whether you can switch back and forth between BLE and ANT+.
bump
Hi Klaus
Regarding the BLE+ANT configuration, there is no restriction there. Garmin offers a packaged ANT+ BLE softdevice (the S340) that can run both radio protocols simultaneously. You may get more radio collision events but you don't need to do anything on your end (except handle the events if you wish).
P.S.
Thanks Bob for the bump
cujomalainey:
Regarding the BLE+ANT configuration, there is no restriction there. Garmin offers a packaged ANT+ BLE softdevice (the S340) that can run both radio protocols simultaneously.
Thank you for the information. Good to know that Garmin combined the two stacks and provides them in the S340 softdevice.
I read on your github you added mbed support this year. Did you test your software on the Arduino Nano 33 BLE?
I did not unfortunately. The mbed support was mostly for the remote protocol so far (UART + some unfinished SPI work). If you are running an nRF5X though if you can flash the softdevice then there should be no issue with running my libs, I would just need to add a couple objects to enable ANT+ access. All my direct usage of the softdevice was on the adafruit nrf52340 express.
Also, I don't use these forum's that much unfortunately, if you want a faster response best to ping me on library's mailing list ![]()
This is easier said than done, in my opinion.
You may need to bypass Mbed / Arduino altogether as I don't believe there is Mbed support for Ant and therefore a big ask to do it via Arduino IDE. Hence, you may have to revert to something like Segger Embedded Studio and then download the Nordic SDK directly. At least this proves it works... then you can begin working on how to achieve the same via Arduino IDE.
The Nordic Semi infocentre documentation website refers people onto the Ant site to get details and to download appropriate softdevice: https://www.thisisant.com/developer/components/nrf52832
Looking at the available examples from Nordic Semiconductor, they are all targetted at the nRF52832 although they should still work with nRF52840 (according to table in the thisisant.com webpage).
There is no "bypassing." Once you install the softdevice you get another another API you can just call with a public header. The closest thing to bypassing is you need to modify the softdevice init command if you are using the S340 to take in the ANT license as well. By yes, changing the bootloader is not a simple task.
You only need segger if you 1) cant update your bootloader without programmer or 2) you brick your bootloader. Personally i use platformio as i find its easier to use hacked BSPs.... sometimes.
7 different nRF52 variants are supported see here
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