Hello everyone, the new BLExplr app v1.5.0 has a hidden easter egg 🙂 If you find it, please make a screenshot and send it over to me using the “E-Mail to the Author” function available in BLExplr and leave your full name as well. If the screenshot shows the easter egg, I will publish the finder on my blog and the finder will get a BLEBee for free 🙂 Happy hunting,

Hello everyone, the BLE-Shield v2.0.0 now entered Beta Testing state. It is almost finished, but I want to get some makers the possibility to get an early access hands-on before it will be manufactured and available globally. The product description is already available in the Hardware section of this blog: http://www.mkroll.mobi/?page_id=1124 The test sketches for Arduino UNO R3 and the Leonardo are available on github already: https://github.com/michaelkroll/BLE-Shield/tree/master/arduino/ It might be worth reading the product description, since the board has some great new features to upgrade it’s firmware easily.

Hello everyone, I just finished an early version of an iBeacon compatible firmware for Bluegiga’s BLE112 module. It is not yet optimized for battery life, but it shows the necessary structure for the Advertisement and the Scan response package. The latter on is only used if you’d like to send a local name as well. The firmware project compiled against the latest v1.2 SDK from Bluegiga is available at github: https://github.

Hello everyone, the BLEBee left beta test status and is now declared final product. The product description is now available in the Bluetooth Hardware section of this blog: http://www.mkroll.mobi/?page_id=1070 Since the hardware is open, all design files are available from my github account: https://github.com/michaelkroll/BLEbee. The BLEBee will be produced soon and will be hopefully available at Seeedstudio as the BLE-Shield v1.0.0. I will let you know when it is available!

Hello everyone, I already published the new firmware v1.1.0 for the BLE-Shield v1.0.0 to my github repository which is available through this link: https://github.com/michaelkroll. In this firmware I omitted the internal 16 byte buffer so the shield now acts better as a serial bridge as before. I removed the control characteristics to query the content of the buffer and reset the buffer count completely. The remaining characteristics are now: The characteristics of the BLE-Shield v1.

Hello everyone, I should have done this earlier, but good things need some time. As you might know, Jeff Rowberg @SectorFej as a BGLib Implementation created and published on github: https://github.com/jrowberg/bglib which runs on Arduino. You need a special firmware for the BLE112 module to be flashed which is available on his github repository as well. The BLE112 needs to be wired to the Arduino as he describes in his Arduino Sample sketches:

Hello everyone, after there was some interest in the Bluetooth RFID Reader I created 2 years ago now (http://www.mkroll.mobi/?page_id=202), I decided to publish all files necessary to create one on github. On github (https://github.com/michaelkroll/BT-RFID-Reader) you can find the eagle design files, the Arduino sketch and the WT-12 configuration as well as STL files to create the enclosure. Please feel free to use the files. Let me know once you created something or need help to set it up.

Hello everyone, this time I have a pile of news for you. Since the development of the BLE-Shield and the initial prototype of the BLEbee, I did some more research and prototyping on three new BLE enabled boards: BLE-Shield v2.0.0 (need another iteration before a private beta test) BLEbee v1.0.0 (almost ready for a private beta test) BLE-Duino 32u4 which is an early prototype with version number 0.6 In the following paragraphs I will share some EagleUp renderings and photos of the real boards with you and talk a little bit about the features and improvements of these boards.

Hello everyone, last week I took a day off in order to join the Atmel Tech On Tour 2013 in Zurich. On June 11th from 9am to 5pm, I learned how to do some SAM4L programming. We received an Atmel ATSAM4L-EK kit including a nice development board and some additional ZigBee modules to develop sophisticated IoT related solutions with the ATSAM4L-EK. The training consited of three parts: learn and deal with the Sleepwalking technology of the SAM4L Integrate FreeRTOS and see the scheduling of tasks Read data from the light sensor of the EK and transfer it over the air to a head unit which draws a chart of the values in realtime.

Hello everyone, initially I was planning to use the ATmega2560, similar to the setup used on Sparkfun’s Mega Pro 3.3V https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10744 to create an Arduino Clone of my own. I played around with an ATmega644p some months ago before I created the BLE-Shield but I stopped working on it due to the lack of spare time invested into other interesting projects. Since the 2560 is somewhat expensive I found out that some people have build Arduino Clones based on the ATmega1284p 40 Pin DIP version.