Add BT/BLE connectivity to any embedded application

MikroElektronika has introduced ANNA-B412 Click, a compact add-on board that supplies BT/BLE connectivity for any embedded application. It features the u-blox ANNA-B412, a standalone Bluetooth 5.1 low-energy module. This SiP design with pre-flashed u-connectXpress software supports Bluetooth LE Serial port service, GATT client and server, Bluetooth beacons, Bluetooth long-range, NFC, and simultaneous peripheral and central roles. The Bluetooth module can deliver up to 2Mbps data rates in LE mode. The module supports Active, Standby, and Sleep modes to optimise power consumption.

Comments Nebojsa Matic, CEO of MIKROE: “This Click board is perfect for the development of industrial automation, smart building applications, low-power sensors, wireless-connected and configurable equipment, and more. One of the main features of this module is the Angle of Arrival (AoA) and Angle of Departure (AoD) with the support of a Bluetooth 5.1 Direction Finding service. These features can be used for indoor positioning, wayfinding, asset tracking, and more.”

The module is powered by the nRF52833 from Nordic Semiconductor, which includes an integrated 2.4GHz transceiver with +8dBm output power and powerful Arm Cortex-M4 with an FPU processor. Also, it is equipped with 512kB of flash memory and 128kB of RAM. For a Bluetooth connection in a 2.4GHz frequency band, ANNA-B412 Click is equipped with a printed PCB antenna that supports 40 channels. The Bluetooth antenna has +9dBm of maximum radiated output power. For NFC, ANNA-B412 Click is equipped with a u.Fl connector, and can work as a 13.56MHz NFC tag at a bit rate of 106Kbps.

Two buttons (T1 and T2) can be utilised to control the system, supplying functionality including restoring factory settings, Bluetooth LE connection to a peripheral device, and entering or exiting bootloader mode. The onboard RGB LED notifies the system status signals, which can be idle in Data mode/Extended data mode, idle in Command mode, connecting, and connected. In addition, the Click is equipped with ten u-connectXpress IO pins, separated into two headers, which can be utilised for user configurable purposes.

The device uses a four-wire UART interface to communicate with the host MCU with a commonly used UART RX/TX and UART RTS/ CTS as UART control flow pins. In addition, the UART DTR data terminal ready and the UART DSR data set ready are also available. The default baud rate is 115200bps. The RST pin can be utilised to reset the module with active LOW. Besides the library we provide, you can use a set of AT commands to control the module over the UART interface. The Click is supported by a mikroSDK-compliant library, which includes functions that simplify software development. This Click board is a fully tested product, ready for use on a system equipped with the mikroBUS socket.