Bluetooth low energy 4.2 module brings power efficiency to IoT designs

Comprising an antenna, radio transceiver, an embedded ARM Cortex M4F microcontroller and a Bluetooth low energy stack, NINA-B1 is ready for design-in for many applications. It is suitable for a wide range of IoT solutions, such as IoT connected sensors, building automation, medical devices, telematics applications, as well as monitoring and control systems. Supporting ARM mbed(TM), the module and its evaluation kit (EVK) are open for designers who wish to embed their own application on top of the Bluetooth low energy stack.

The latest Bluetooth 4.2 specification offers an enhanced connection security capability, IPv6 and faster throughput compared to previous versions. The module is ready to support the future Bluetooth 5.0 specification by means of a firmware upgrade. The application memory - 512 kB Flash and 64 kB RAM - allows for firmware upgrades to be performed Over-The-Sir (OTA).

With the u-blox Serial Port service pre-loaded, NINA-B1 enables fast integration into devices running serial protocols. AT commands, compatible with other u-blox modules, keep configuration efforts to a minimum.

NINA-B1 has advanced power management features to keep the power consumption down to 400 nA with wake up on an external event, 2µA during idle state and 5mA (at 0dBm) at 3.0VDC, during transmission. With integrated NFC capability, the module may be used to support Touch-and-Pair use cases for simplified Bluetooth pairing.

"NINA-B1 is a fully certified Bluetooth low energy module with excellent RF capabilities. The open architecture approach to software development from ARM mbed(TM) speeds up the IoT application development, thus greatly reducing the time to market and the related costs," explains Pelle Svensson, Product Marketing Short Range Radio, u-blox.

The module is a complete stand-alone Bluetooth low energy product and does not require any additional hardware. Sensors, accelerometers, LEDs along with other sensing and control devices can be connected directly to the module via GPIO, ADC, I2C, SPI and UART interfaces. It is available in two versions, NINA-B112 (10x14mm) with integrated antenna and NINA-B111 (10x10 mm) with an antenna pin designed for customer-specific antenna solutions.