All the sensors employ Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC to provide the Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity between the sensors and iOS Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphones and tablets running the ‘FIBARO for HomeKit’ app, or third party HomeKit-compatible apps. From the app, sensor parameters and alerts can be set and monitored, notifying the homeowner in the event of a change of conditions outside of the set parameters.
The Motion and Flood Sensors each employ one 3V CR123A, while the Door/Window Sensor employs one 3.6V ER14250 battery, both providing the sensors with up to two years of standard operation between replacement, thanks in part to the ultra low power characteristics of the Nordic nRF52832 SoC.
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.
“Our sensors were originally based on Z-Wave, but we wanted to reach mass market customers who do not need a dedicated gateway, and only require a smartphone or tablet so we released an additional line of HomeKit enabled products,” says FIBARO CEO, Maciej Fielder. “We were attracted to Nordic’s Bluetooth LE solution as it perfectly suited our need for low power consumption, longer battery lifetime, and Apple HomeKit compatibility.
“This is our first time working with Nordic, but we have been impressed with the technical support, the support provided by the wider Nordic Semiconductor community, and the quick response time to our questions.”