The new Bluetooth 5 specification promises twice the speed and 4 times the range. Doubling the speed is achieved by increasing the on-air datarate to 2Mbps, while quadrupling the range is achieved by lowering the bitrate to increase the sensitivity of the receiver. We at Nordic have made a demo showing these features with our newest SoftDevice(s) and specifically our newest chip, the nRF52840. It was showcased at CES 2017 in January.
Here is a more in depth description of the demo.
The demo is based on the ATT_MTU throughput example in SDK 13.0.0-1.alpha, which allows you to configure various Bluetooth low energy (BLE) parameters to test out the impact on throughput and range. This demo adds some configurations and can be used either with a display or a terminal program on the computer.
Hardware requirements:
- Two nRF52840 Preview Development Kits (PDK) or nRF52832 Development Kits. A combination of the two different kits can also be used. Notice that if the nRF52832 Development Kit is used, the long-range feature will not work as this is only possible with the nRF52840.
- A computer with a terminal program. Since the display shield is just an internal prototype and not pub