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Teeny-Tiny Bluetooth Transmitter Runs on Less Than 1 Milliwatt

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Teeny-Tiny Bluetooth Transmitter Runs on Less Than 1 Milliwatt

#41

Post by lam »

howard941 wrote: post #27
asteli wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

like any transmitter, this depends on the gain of your receiver :)

And the stuff you have to penetrate. I turn the power down to -40dbm on one of our products during "Just works" BLE bonding to help minimize the surface area but I have the luxury of thin plastic enclosures, decent trace antennas, and the ability to force the user to place the devices right next to each other.

Which BLE chip do you use? On the nRF51, it actually remaps -40dBm to -30dBm. With the newer nRF52, you can use NFC for OOB authentication for more security. I'd love to know more what you're working on.

Re: Teeny-Tiny Bluetooth Transmitter Runs on Less Than 1 Milliwatt

#42

Post by neetle »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #25
lozaning wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im envious of your ability to keep track of your things. I end up needing to use the one of my tiles to find either my keys, phone, wallet or work badge almost every other day. When the batteries in them go dead its easy enough to to swap them out myself for new ones.

Wow! Forgive me, but why can’t you just keep them in the same place? My wallet and keys are 100% of the time in the same place when I’m at home, and my phone is either in my pocket, my hand, charging in a specific spot, or on a random surface in the house. That last one is rare, but happens. It takes roughly 30 seconds to walk through the house and find it. What am I missing?

Personally, I've found having them in the one place works really well until my under-5 year old wants to play "driving to daycare" and forgets where they left them once done.

Re: Teeny-Tiny Bluetooth Transmitter Runs on Less Than 1 Milliwatt

#43

Post by jjeaff »

xahrepap wrote: post #28
penagwin wrote: post #2

I'd love to see what kind of range we can expect from that haha. Still a great achievement for BLE! I have an iPhone and often find it via saying "Hey Siri", and have sorely wished for a way to locate more "mundane" objects, and if this were to ever cost around the price of an ESP8266 it'd make that possible. (Yes there is tile and similar tags, but those are expensive, and I mean to have a tracker on a bunch of item…

I would LOVE to have something on my glasses! Even just something to tell me I'm in the same room. My prescription is powerful enough that I need them, generally, but weak enough that I take them off often at home. This also means I lose them a lot and I can never quite seem to remember which room I was in when I removed them. :)

My solution to that was zennioptical.com. I bought about 10 pairs for a total of less than $100 and just leave then all over the place.

Re: Teeny-Tiny Bluetooth Transmitter Runs on Less Than 1 Milliwatt

#44

Post by jjeaff »

jsgo wrote: post #36
DiabloD3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood Tile and the rest. The only thing I want a locator on is my phone.

I like the idea behind Tile, but there've been so many times where the tile I had was sitting within 3 ft of me but my phone couldn't locate or ping it.

I use trackr. 4 out of 5 times I need to find something, the battery is dead.

Re: Teeny-Tiny Bluetooth Transmitter Runs on Less Than 1 Milliwatt

#45

Post by cf498 »

jackhack wrote: post #38

And thus begins a Cambrian explosion of new spy devices that run (practically) forever off a button cell. The bleed/drain rate of many batteries is far more than 1mw.

Whats the power consumption like for audio recorders? Because as far as I know video is out of question at these energy levels.

Re: Teeny-Tiny Bluetooth Transmitter Runs on Less Than 1 Milliwatt

#47

Post by NikkiA »

penagwin wrote: post #2

I'd love to see what kind of range we can expect from that haha. Still a great achievement for BLE! I have an iPhone and often find it via saying "Hey Siri", and have sorely wished for a way to locate more "mundane" objects, and if this were to ever cost around the price of an ESP8266 it'd make that possible. (Yes there is tile and similar tags, but those are expensive, and I mean to have a tracker on a bunch of item…

Probably not much range, I'd be surprised if it's more than a few metres. The intended use case would likely be with some kind of powered repeater or receiver within reasonably close proximity.

That still opens a lot of new opportunities though.

Re: Teeny-Tiny Bluetooth Transmitter Runs on Less Than 1 Milliwatt

#48

Post by howard941 »

lam wrote: post #41
howard941 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the stuff you have to penetrate. I turn the power down to -40dbm on one of our products during "Just works" BLE bonding to help minimize the surface area but I have the luxury of thin plastic enclosures, decent trace antennas, and the ability to force the user to place the devices right next to each other.

Which BLE chip do you use? On the nRF51, it actually remaps -40dBm to -30dBm. With the newer nRF52, you can use NFC for OOB authentication for more security. I'd love to know more what you're working on.

The 52832 in a third party module and as you know that maps -30 to -40. NFC would have been nice but my hardware guy didn't bring the pins out on either side which is a damn shame because I don't have any user inputs other than power on/off on one side of the link. Email is in my profile if you'd like to know more
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