Micro Eddystone Beacon
Table of Contents
Introduction
The micro_eddystone_beacon project uses a unique Micro BLE Stack that has been optimized/reduced to only support the broadcast role to save memory. This project will demonstrate the implementation of a non-connectable beacon that uses the Eddystone beacon format. Background and introduction to Bluetooth low energy beacons can be found here: SWRA475. The specifications and instructions on using the simple_eddystone project in particular can be found here: SWRA491. See the Micro BLE Stack section of the BLE5-Stack User’s Guide for more details.
Hardware Prerequisites
The default Micro Eddystone Beacon configuration uses the LAUNCHXL-CC2640R2. This hardware configuration is shown in the below image:
For custom hardware, see the Running the SDK on Custom Boards section of the BLE5-Stack User’s Guide.
Software Prerequisites
For information on what versions of Code Composer Studio and IAR Embedded Workbench to use, see the Release Notes located in the docs/ble5stack folder. For information on how to import this project into your IDE workspace and build/run, please refer to The CC2640R2F Platform section in the BLE5-Stack User’s Guide.
Usage
This application uses the UART peripheral to provide an interface for the application. This document will use PuTTY to serve as the display for the output of the CC2640R2 LaunchPad. Note that any other serial terminal can be used. The following default parameters are used for the UART peripheral for display:
| UART Param | Default Values |
|---|---|
| Baud Rate | 115200 |
| Data length | 8 bits |
| Parity | None |
| Stop bits | 1 bit |
| Flow Control | None |
Once the application starts, it will immediately start broadcasting UID advertising packets. The output to the terminal window will show the Eddystone mode type (UID or URL), the broadcasting state (Idle or Advertising), and how many advertisements have been broadcasted:
Pressing the left button (BTN-1 on the CC2640R2 LaunchPad) will toggle advertising on/off. Pressing the right button (BTN-2) will toggle between UID and URL advertisements. Regardless of which type of Eddystone mode the device is in, every 10th packet will be a TLM packet. The TLM data will be displayed starting with the first TLM packet that is sent, and this will be updated with every new TLM packet:
The Eddystone Validator app discussed in the Eddystone document (introduced in the Introduction section above) can be used to verify these advertising packets:
Note that, unlike the beacons mentioned in the Eddystone document, the beacon advertisements produced with this application are all non-connectable (including the URL packets).