Bluefruit LE Micro is a BLE board for Makers

2万 · 2015-8-16 20:04

Makers who are looking to create a Bluetooth-enabled project will be excited to learn of Adafruit’s latest product. The newly-unveiled Bluefruit LE Micro rollsthe versatility of the ATmega32U4 MCU and the wireless connectivity of the SPI Bluefruit LE Friend all into one board.

What’s nice is that the Bluefruit LE Micro makes is easier than ever to add BLE capabilities to any number of DIY projects. Makers can program the ATmega32U4 over USB using its built-in USB bootloader, either directly with AVRDUDE or the Arduino IDE. The board runs at a 8MHz clock speed, boasts a logic level of 3.3V for compatibility with a wide range of sensors, and features more than 20 GPIO pins, including I2C, SPI, a UART and six analog inputs. On top of that, the chip packs 28KB of Flash, 2KB of RAM, and of course, native USB for programming and communication.

As Adafruit points out, Makers can add a rechargeable LiPo battery with the help of a LiPoly backpack as well. Simply solder it on top of the Bluefruit LE Micro and it’ll juice up the battery via the microUSB connector. When the USB is unplugged, it will run off the battery.

“The Bluefruit LE module is an nRF51822 chipset from Nordic, programmed with multi-function code that can do quite a lot! For most people, they’ll be very happy to use the standard Nordic UART RX/TX connection profile. In this profile, the Bluefruit acts as a data pipe, that

can ‘transparently’ transmit back and forth from your iOS or Android device.”

“Thanks to an easy-to-learn AT command set, Makers will have total control over how the device behaves, including the ability to define and manipulate your own GATT Services and Characteristics, or change the way that the device advertises itself for other Bluetooth Low Energy devices to see. You can also use the AT commands to query the die temperature, check the battery voltage, and more, check the connection RSSI or MAC address, and tons more.”

Additionally, the Bluefruit app enables Makers to quickly prototype their projects by using their iOS or Android device as a controller. Adafruit has a color picker, a quaternion/accelerometer/gyro/magnetometer, an eight-button gamepad and a GPS locator. This data can be read over BLE and relayed to the on-board ATmega32U4 for processing.