Smart home
Low power wireless connectivity solutions for smart home
Bluetooth LE sensors provide wireless solution for detecting water leaks and monitoring changes in temperature
18
Jan
2017
2017
Oslo, Norway
ConnectSense sensors provide accurate and immediate reporting of changes in environmental variables employing Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC to provide wireless connectivity
Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Naperville, IL-based home automation manufacturer, Grid Connect Inc, has selected Nordic’s nRF52832 Bluetooth® Low Energy System-on-Chip (SoC) for its ‘ConnectSense’ Wireless Temperature and Humidity and Water Sensor solutions.
The ConnectSense Bluetooth LE Temperature and Humidity Sensor provides accurate and reliable monitoring of temperature sensitive areas of the home or office, for example wine cellars, IT server rooms, and greenhouses. The ConnectSense Bluetooth LE Water Sensor provides water leak detection anywhere where plumbing needs to be monitored, for example laundry rooms or basements. Both the Temperature and Humidity Sensor and the Water Sensor are Apple HomeKit-compatible.
Sensor parameters and alerts are set using “if/then” rules from the ConnectSense app. The sensor data is automatically synched to iOS Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphones and tablets via the Bluetooth LE wireless link provided by the nRF52832 SoC, notifying the user in the event a water leak is detected, or of changes to the room’s temperature or humidity outside of the set parameters.
Both sensors employ two AAA batteries, providing between eight and 12 months of standard operation between replacement, thanks in part to the ultra low power characteristics of the Nordic nRF52832 SoC.
Although our previous generation sensors supported Wi-Fi, we decided to switch to Bluetooth Low Energy for our new sensors to gain even better power efficiency.
Adam Justice, ConnectSense
Nordic’s nRF52832 Bluetooth LE SoC, a member of Nordic’s sixth
generation of ultra low power (ULP) wireless connectivity solutions,
combines a 64MHz, 32-bit ARM® Cortex® M4F processor with a 2.4GHz
multiprotocol radio (fully compatible with Bluetooth 4.2, ANT™ and
proprietary 2.4GHz RF software) featuring -96dB RX sensitivity, with
512kB Flash memory and 64kB RAM. When launched, the SoC was the world’s
highest performance single-chip Bluetooth LE solution,
delivering up to 60 percent more generic processing power, offering 10
times the Floating Point performance and twice the DSP performance
compared to competing solutions.
“Although our previous generation sensors supported Wi-Fi, we decided to
switch to Bluetooth LE for our new sensors to gain even better
power efficiency,” says Adam Justice, Vice President, ConnectSense.
“Specifically we selected Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC for its power efficiency
and robust SDK [Software Development Kit], which included support for
Apple HomeKit’s latest specifications. This is our first experience
working with Nordic and we have found the support to be excellent and
the engineers to be very responsive. Overall it’s been a great
experience.”
