{"id":6881,"date":"2021-11-12T10:14:38","date_gmt":"2021-11-12T10:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/?p=6881"},"modified":"2021-11-12T10:18:12","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T10:18:12","slug":"no-firmware-nanobeacon-soc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/no-firmware-nanobeacon-soc\/","title":{"rendered":"No Firmware NanoBeacon SoC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Almost all beacons are slight derivations of a few standard circuit designs and firmware provided by Texas Instruments, Dialog and Nordic who produce the System On a Chip (SoC) inside beacons. The SoCs are general purpose devices that can do a lot more than just advertise as beacons but the beacon manufacturers only provide fixed firmware that performs just this one function, occasionally with additional sensing<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of firmware-based SoCs for beacons means there’s a lot of hardware and software (SDKs) that goes into creating a beacon. Much of this isn’t needed if the chip is designed for the single purpose of being a beacon. We previously mentioned the AK1594<\/a> but have yet to see any designs making use of this device.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NanoBeacon IN100 SoC<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The InPlay NanoBeacon IN100<\/a> is a newer device that has recently received Bluetooth 5.3 certification. It’s small (DFN8 is 2.5 x 2.5mm), inexpensive (designs using it are expected to be <$1) and no firmware or SDK is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The IN100 uses only 650nA when used with 1 minute advertising intervals that means it will last a very long time under battery power. The range can be up to several hundred meters. It’s configured using a programmer board connected by USB. A smartphone app is used for configuration. InPlay have a video demonstrating configuration:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We expect this SoC will end up being embedded in products rather than being used stand-alone in beacons because beacon manufacturers are already heavily invested into firmware-based beacons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost all beacons are slight derivations of a few standard circuit designs and firmware provided by Texas Instruments, Dialog and Nordic who produce the System On a Chip (SoC) inside beacons. The SoCs are general purpose devices that can do a lot more than just advertise as beacons but the beacon manufacturers only provide fixed … Continue reading “No Firmware NanoBeacon SoC”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6881"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6897,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881\/revisions\/6897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}