The BLE Shield is an Arduino compatible shield with nRF8001 BLE controller chip that enables BLE feature for Arduino boards.
BLE Shield Library (now called nRF8001 library) is a software library allows Arduino board to control the BLE Shield, it provides a simple TX/RX service for exchanging data between nRF8001 peripheral device and central devices such as iPhone/iPad/Android.
This repository contains hardware information and the old version of BLE Shield library for Arduino. The library file will be changed to the new repository: RBL_nRF8001 library
The library files here are just kept for future reference only (require Nordic library to work)
The nRF8001 library will be shared for different products like the BLE Shield and Blend Micro,
Actually, if your are learning how BLE works rather than just exchanging data, you can use Nordic's nRF8001 SDK for Arduino with the BLE Shield directly, it has a lot of examples and tutorials for BLE beginers.
Nordic BLE SDK for Arduino
Nordic nRF8001 SDK for Arduino
Q1: What is BT dual mode? Is the BLE Shield a dual mode device?
A1: Dual mode devices (e.g. iPhone 4S/5) are compatible with both Classic and BLE devices.<br>
BLE Shield is a single mode device only, so it is not compatible with the classic mode BT.
Q2: What is BLE Central role? Can the BLE Shield work in Central role?<br> A2: Central role devices (e.g. iPhone 4S/5) can work as a master in the BLE star network, they can perform scanning and connect to peripheral devices. The BLE Shield can work as peripheral role only, i.e. it can only be connected from other central rol devices.
Q3: Can I get RSSI from the BLE Shield?
A3: The nRF8001 does not provide any function call to get RSSI, so this is not possible. You can get RSSI from the BLE central side, e.g. iPhone 5.
Q4: Can I change the name (BLE Shield) to others?
A4: You can use the API - "ble_set_name(name)" to do that. See examples.
Q5: Can I change the 128-bit UUID with my own one?
A5: You need to use Nordic's nRFgo Studio and open the BLEShield.xml to edit the settings, it will generate some C source files using the .bat file.
You can also set the connection interval, advertising data, etc.
Q6: Can two BLE Shields talk to each other?
A6: Since the BLE Shield cannot run in Central role, so this is not possible.
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