DFRobot Bluno is a Bluetooth 4.0 LE development board following Arduino UNO form factor, and powered by TI CC2540 chipset. The board sells for $24.90 on their online store, and the company provides firmware and mobile app source code, but if you ever wanted a similar solution in a much smaller form factor, and powered by a coin cell battery, the company has now launched BLE Micro board.
BLE Micro board specifications:
- Bluetooth Chip – Texas Instruments CC2540 8051 MCU with USB, Bluetooth 4.0 LE connectivity
- Wireless Connectivity
- Frequency: 2.4GHz
- Transfer rate: ≤1Mbps
- Modulation: GFSK, Bluetooth low power, V4.0
- Sensitivity: -93dB
- Transmission distance – 30m in free space
- USB – 1x micro USB port
- Expansion – 21 through holes with reset, power signals, UART, and GPIOs.
- Input Voltage: +3.3 DC
- Power Consumption – Working: 10.6mA average, ready mode:8.7mA
- Temperature Range – -10 ~ +65
- Dimensions – 49mm x 35mm
Typical applications include iBeacon,HID connection, wearable equipment, and Bluetooth development. You’ll find more details including schematics, AT command set, links and info for Android and iOS apps in the Wiki.
DFrobot’s BLE Micro board is sold for $19.90 in single quantity and a bit lower in higher quantities, e.g. $17 per unit for 10 pieces or more.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Ouch, that’s rather pricey. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were one of the many arm based chips. The cc2540 is an absolute pain to deal with, only supported toolchain is IAR and that’s really expensive. Seems odd to be releasing something based on the older 8051 lines at this point.
Same with me when i read 8051 i had to think about the cc2430 nightmare, the product became immediately uninteresting…