[Silicon Labs BG22-EK4108A Bluetooth Development Evaluation] Part 2: First Experience with the Development Environment

jj1989

[Silicon Labs BG22-EK4108A Bluetooth Development Evaluation] Part 2: First Experience with the Development Environment [Copy link]

 

[Silicon Labs BG22-EK4108A Bluetooth Development Evaluation] Part 2: First Experience with the Development Environment

Preface

In the last article, I learned about the BG22-EK4108A kit through the official website document, and I couldn't wait to plug it in and turn it on. This time, I will refer to QSG169: Bluetooth SDK v3.x Quick Start Guide to do a simple power-on and experience the development environment.

Development environment construction

First, download and install the corresponding version of Simplicity Studio v5 according to the system used. It supports the three major mainstream platforms of Widnows, Mac and Linux. After the software is installed, connect the BG22-EK4108A kit to the computer via USB. The software automatically recognizes the kit and clicks "start" to install the corresponding kit SDK. Wait a moment to complete the construction of the development environment. It's that simple!

Demo Experience

QSG169: In the introduction to the Bluetooth protocol stack in the Bluetooth SDK v3.x Quick Start Guide, it is mentioned that the protocol stack provides three working modes. They are:

• standalone mode
• network co-processor(NCP) mode
• Radio co-processor (RCP) mode

The first is the mode used by traditional BLE SOCs, where both the application and the protocol stack run on the same SOC.

The second mode separates the BLE protocol stack from the application, and the application runs on other devices.

In the third mode, only the BLE link layer runs on the BLE SOC, and the rest runs on another device.

Compared with the traditional all in one, this flexible protocol stack working mechanism can meet different usage requirements. For example, we choose the second NCP mode, let the SOC only be responsible for the processing of the BLE protocol stack, and use the PC host computer to control the SOC work through the serial port.

It just so happens that the official has provided such a demo called Bluetooth-NCP, so let's actually experience it.

First, click the "RUN" button to load the program and run it. At this point, we just load the protocol stack to the chip. We also need the official Bluetooth NCP Commander to configure the protocol stack and add GATT and broadcast.

As shown above, click "Create Basic GATT" and change the device name to "Silabs&eeworld". Then add a broadcast and click "start" to start the broadcast.

At this time, you can search for the BLE device named "Silabs&eeworld" through your mobile phone. Here we use the iOS Lightblue app, as shown below:

After connecting to the device, Bluetooth NCP Commander will automatically jump to the "BLE Connections" interface and display the information of the master device. As shown below:

Summarize

Simplicity Studio is a secondary development based on Eclipse, so it supports the three major operating systems, which is a good point. The official software is very complete and easy to use. You can build a highly customized BLE device with a simple mouse movement, which is very playable. The visual configuration interface provided by its Bluetooth NCP Commander tool is also very helpful for beginners to understand the BLE protocol stack. This is my first experience with the development environment, and my impression of Silicon has been further enhanced. I look forward to discovering more interesting new things in the future.

soso

Looking forward to the follow-up :)