Ways to program BLE112

Question

I want to use BlueGiga BLE112 for some BLE development. I found that it can be programmed using BGScript, BGAPI or IAR Workbench. I checked this post: BlueGiga BLE development tools

My project needs very fast performance. But I am not very clear about the advantages or limitations of each method. In which case do I need IAR workbench, which is quite expensive?

Answer 1

The thing about BLE is that the slow data/rate high latency of the waveform itself makes the coding method usually not the limiting factor in a system's design. Scripting and BGLIB seem a good fit--for most BLE applications. For example, if 100 msec. latency from pressing a switch to a light turning on is not significant then A C compiler is not necessary.

The computer scientists complain about lack if #include and that that all variables are global but the fact is that the code running at the sensor should be minimal and most processing/data reduction should be done on the device with the biggest battery--asymetrically--in proper BLE fashion.

Answer 2

Most BLE112 programs are written using Bluegiga script or bgs. A whole stack of xml files are also needed to setup hardware states. For example, setting the baud rate is done in the hardware.xml file. Some of the functions are very archaic - printing strings requires a functions such as print(port,"A string",8) where 8 is the number of characters in the string. The port can be UART 0-3 or USB. Printing numbers is even worse since each digit needs to be printed individually. The amount of memory seems limited - any program more than 2-3 pages seems to cause flash memory overrun errors.

Having said that, most people now prefer and specify Bluetooth v4 and the BLE112 is the best v4 module we know of. We use this dongle below for development. http://esdn.com.au/Products/USB-BLE112.html