Meet the New NINA-B1 from u-Blox

The NINA-B1 Bluetooth module offers new possibilities in the world of IoT

Thalwil, Switzerland-based u-Blox are leaders in wireless and positioning technology and during Embedded World 2016 they unveiled the new NINA-B1 Bluetooth module. To kick things off, the NINA-B1 is certified to be compliant in the latest low-energy 4.2 specifications for less power usage.
The full featured NINA-B1 is comprised of an antenna, radio transceiver, ARM Cortex M4F microcontroller and Bluetooth low-energy stack. This compact design allows the B1 to be integrated quickly and easily into IoT devices. There is also compatibility with ARM mbed, which allows those who desire, the ability to embed their own application on the Bluetooth stack.

 The NINA-B1 Evaluation Kit

Keeping in line with the energy thrifty theme is the fact that the B1 has advanced power management features that keep consumption down to 400 nA and 2 µA during idle. U-Blox also future proofed the B1 by allowing it to be upgraded all the way to BLE 5.0 via firmware update when that time comes. Aiding the OTA updates is application memory featuring 512kB Flash and 64kB RAM.

Pelle Svensson, Product Marketing Short Range Radio at u-blox elaborated on NINA-B1's possibilities in an interview:

"NINA-B1 is a fully certified Bluetooth low energy module with excellent RF capabilities. The open architecture approach to software development from ARM mbed speeds up the IoT application development, thus greatly reducing the time to market and the related costs,"

Quick acceptance and integration into the IoT world is assisted by the fact that the NINA-B1 is designed as a stand-alone unit. This means that the B1 doesn’t need any additional hardware to operate. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t compatible or linkable with other devices however.

  

Additional sensors and ancillary devices such as accelerometers and LED’s can be directly connected in a variety of ways. These include GPIO, ADC, I2C, SPI and UART interfaces for complete compatibility. U-blox also took the consideration to offer the NINA-B1 in two different sizes: the B112 which is 10mm x 12mm and the B111 which is 10mm x 10mm.  
The NINA-B1 will continue to keep u-blox at the forefront of wireless technology and push the capabilities of IoT devices to new heights. We can’t wait to see the possibilities. For more information on the B1 and other u-blox innovations check them out here!  


Source: U-blox.com