New Industry Products

BLE SoCs Add Point-To-Point Distance Measurement to Help Stop COVID-19 Spread

April 29, 2020 by Paul Shepard

Dialog Semiconductor is bringing point-to-point wireless distance measurements to its DA1469x Bluetooth® LE product family through a software package called SmartBond Wireless Ranging SDK, expected in May.

It can be used to more accurately locate Bluetooth LE products. In the light of the current COVID-19 crisis, the new ranging feature can be a key ingredient to keep “social distancing” norms in workplaces. The company has committed to take on the challenge to support very short time-to-market in product developments for this use case.

Also, Dialog will release a pre-programmed Wireless Ranging Development Kit with DA14695 devices providing distance read-out directly on a compact OLED display to support evaluation and prototyping.

DA14695 Development Kit – USB

This USB development kit gives you all flexibility to develop applications in a small and portable form factor. The USB board has an on-board debugger, which in combination with SmartSnippets™, Dialog’s software environment, enables you to program and test your Bluetooth low energy application.

Additionally, the board also provides a mikroBUS™ header interface enabling you to expand the functionality of the kit with any of the hundreds of available “click boards.”

The development kit main features are:

  • Embedded JLINK debugger
  • 4x user switches
  • 1x user LEDs
  • MikroBUS™ connector for easy sensor interface