Nordic nRF52840 enables 24/7 sports tracking for Bluetooth low energy smartwatches

Nordic Semiconductor has announced that Shenzhen Aidu Technology Co., Ltd., a Shenzhen-based smart wearable device company, has chosen Nordic’s nRF52840 Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) advanced multiprotocol System-on-Chip (SoC) to provide the core processing power and wireless connectivity for its “ID205G” smartwatch with integrated GPS chip.

This wearable device is equipped with a 1.3-inch TFT-LCD color touch screen, built-in heart rate sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope, and is designed for users who need a stylish smartwatch form factor and detailed health and fitness data monitoring. The nRF52840 SoC's 64MHz, 32-bit Arm® Cortex® M4 processor with floating point unit (FPU) provides sufficient computing power to run complex sensor algorithms, allowing this smartwatch to accurately track and calculate motion and activity data. This smartwatch has a built-in GPS chip and can be used independently, allowing users to track their movements throughout the day without carrying a mobile phone.

With the low-power Bluetooth connectivity provided by Nordic SoC (supporting Bluetooth 4.0 and above), users can pair their watches with iOS or Android smartphones. Aidu Technology's "VeryFitPro" app not only allows users to view their activities, health data and trends, but also allows them to modify the settings and functions of their smartwatches. For example, with the low-power Bluetooth connectivity provided by Nordic SoC (supporting Bluetooth 4.0 and above), users can pair their watches with iOS or Android smartphones.

The ID205G smartwatch is powered by a 210mAh lithium polymer battery and can run for 5 to 7 days under standard usage and up to 40 days in standby mode after charging. One reason is the ultra-low power consumption characteristics of the Nordic SoC. The nRF52840 SoC has been carefully designed to minimize power consumption through a fully automatic power management system, which reduces power consumption by up to 80% compared to the nRF51 Series.

The nRF52840 SoC's Arm Cortex M4 processor is combined with a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio (supporting Bluetooth 5.2, ANT™, Thread, Zigbee, IEEE 802.15.4, and proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol software) and provides ample 1MB Flash and 256kB RAM memory allocation. The new radio architecture with on-chip power amplifier has -95 dBm RX sensitivity (at 1Mbps Bluetooth low energy), a maximum output power of 8dBm, and an overall link budget of 103dBm. The nRF52840 SoC is shipped with Nordic's S140 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5-certified software protocol stack for building long-range and high-data-throughput Bluetooth low energy applications. The S140 SoftDevice provides concurrent central, peripheral, broadcaster, and observer Bluetooth low energy roles, and supports high-throughput and long-range modes as well as advertising extensions.

“When we were selecting an SoC, the main considerations were size, availability and excellent power performance, so we chose the nRF52840,” said Mr. He An, CEO and Head of R&D at Aidu Technology.

“Developing application code using Nordic’s development tool suite and examples was very straight forward, and if we ran into issues, Nordic technical engineers were able to provide quick and helpful technical support to overcome them.”