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Bluetooth Low Energy-powered wearable smart button dynamically displays custom images and animations
12
Aug
2019
2019
Oslo, Norway
Pin One employs Nordic Semiconductor’s ultra low power nRF52832 SoC to ensure extended battery life and low latency operation
Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Stockholm, Sweden-based smart wearables developer, Pins Collective, has selected Nordic’s Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) nRF52832 System-on-Chip (SoC) to provide the wireless connectivity for its flagship product, the ‘Pin One’.
Pin One is a smart button wearable that can dynamically display custom images and looped animations on its 32 by 32mm reflective LCD screen, and is designed for consumer, commercial, and professional applications. The 300 by 300 pixel resolution display supports animated GIFs of up to 15 frames per second, and 35 individual frames in total, ensuring smooth animation transitions.
The Nordic nRF52832 SoC’s low power consumption and small size were the two major features that helped us decide to use the chip
Olof Sjöstedt, CEO of Pins Collective
In operation, the user can upload content to the smart button from the ‘Pins Collective’ app on their iOS or Android Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphone or tablet, thanks to the low latency Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity provided by the Nordic SoC. Both the iOS and Android app allows users to create custom images and GIFs, while the iOS app also offers community functionality for sharing designs. In addition to providing the Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity, the nRF52832 SoC’s Arm® Cortex® M4F processor also runs all the button’s core functionality, including static displays, animations, and backlight intensity.
The Pin One’s rechargeable lithium battery provides between six and 24 hours operation between recharge depending on animation and backlight intensity, thanks in part to the ultra low power characteristics of the Nordic SoC. The nRF52832 has been engineered to minimize power consumption with features such as the 2.4GHz radio’s 5.5mA peak RX/TX currents and a fully-automatic power management system that reduces power consumption by up to 80 percent compared with Nordic’s nRF51 Series SoCs.
Nordic’s nRF52832 multiprotocol SoC combines the 64MHz, 32-bit Arm processor with a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio (supporting Bluetooth 5, ANT™, and proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol software) featuring -96dB RX sensitivity, with 512kB Flash memory and 64kB RAM. The SoC is supplied with Nordic’s S132 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5-certified RF software protocol stack for building advanced Bluetooth LE applications. The S132 SoftDevice features Central, Peripheral, Broadcaster and Observer Bluetooth LE roles, supports up to twenty connections, and enables concurrent role operation.
“Pin One is a lightweight wearable and power consumption is a key feature for the product,” says Olof Sjöstedt, CEO of Pins Collective. “The Nordic nRF52832 SoC’s low power consumption and small size were the two major features that helped us decide to use the chip.”
