BLE

Wireless & IoT Cellular
1

I’m new to BLE and have come here in an effort to improve a product I’ve already developed. I have a sensor array that I need to read every X minutes (right now X=30). I then send these readings to the cloud via LTE. The system is remote and must run on a battery/solar cell combination for at least a year without the need for a battery change. Currently the Arduino wakes up from deep sleep every 30 minutes, reads data, transmits the values to the cloud via LTE, and then goes back to sleep.

The current design uses a 30" cable to connect all 9 DS1820 sensors via a Dallas 1 wire bus. I would like to eliminate the cable and feel that the BLE IN100 board could do this. I’m thinking that your BLE board could live with the sensors, read the sensors every minute or so and then transmit the 9 values via a beacon. Since the Arduino and beacon would be asynchronous, the beacon would need to transmit quite often so the Arduino would see the data when it awakes from deep sleep. The Arduino would then receive the data after it wakes from deep sleep, transmit the data via LTE and return to deep sleep.

The SparkFun NanoBeacon Board - IN100 seems to have the battery life to last more than one year transmitting every 30 seconds. The sensors require about 5 seconds to read and reports all 9 sensors via the Dallas 1 wire.

I would basically be using the SparkFun NanoBeacon Board - IN100 as a cable replacement. The one concern I would have is that I could have several of the sensor boards in close proximity (3 feet or less) feeding a single Arduino LTE. I would also have several of the Arduino/sensor board systems in close proximity to each other. The Arduino’s must only read their assigned sensor boards.

I would just like to know if this is possible with the SparkFun NanoBeacon Board - IN100 before I invest the time and money to research and design the “cable replacement” systems. My inputs will be I2C, Dallas 1 wire, and HX711 load cells.

I’ve watched several videos on the SparkFun NanoBeacon Board - IN100 and it seems like a great fit for me.

Thanks,

Rick