Support for verification, testing, and evaluation of cloud-connected wireless IoT designs

Nordic Semiconductor announced that it is offering the 'nRF Connect for Cloud' service for free, which enables cloud-based evaluation, testing, and verification of Bluetooth LE designs that utilize its nRF51 and nRF52 series multi-protocol Bluetooth LE (Bluetooth® Low Energy) SoCs (System-on-Chip).

nRF Connect for the cloud features an intuitive workflow and offers many of the features of Nordic’s nRF Connect for Desktop and nRF Connect for Mobile, which are widely used applications for implementing and developing Bluetooth LE products. In addition, nRF Connect for the cloud supports a wide range of standard Bluetooth services, including proprietary services such as nRF UART. nRF Connect for the cloud, which runs on all general-purpose browsers, can exchange data with the cloud via the Web Bluetooth API (Application Programming Interface) and allows developers to test and modify the operation and performance of prototypes.

Using the front-end and visualization capabilities of nRF Connect for the cloud, recorded data can be extracted from a database and analyzed in a browser. Additionally, this product enables engineers to monitor and interact with remote wireless IoT (Internet of Things) designs, allowing geographically separated development teams to collaborate on a single project.

nRF Connect for the cloud is also available on iOS and Android-based mobile devices via the nRF Gateway App. Nordic's Bluetooth LE devices can convert Bluetooth LE messages to ReST/MQTT/IP protocols to enable interoperability with the cloud using a smartphone-based internet gateway via the nRF Gateway App.

This gateway app communicates with the backend of nRF Connect for the cloud hosted on AWS (Amazon Web Services) and is based on Software as a Service (SaaS) components. This app leverages AWS industrial-grade components to enable end-to-end data and device connectivity, ensure reliability, and scale from a few to hundreds of Bluetooth LE devices.

nRF Connect for the Cloud currently supports Bluetooth LE solutions, but future versions will also support Nordic’s nRF91 series low-power, global multimode LTE-M/NB-IoT System-in-Package (SiP) for cellular IoT. As updates to nRF Connect for the Cloud are carried out in accordance with Nordic’s strategy to continuously improve development tools, it will further strengthen its position as an essential tool for wireless IoT development teams using Nordic products.

John Leonard, Product Marketing Manager at Nordic Semiconductor, stated, “As the number of development teams implementing distributed IoT systems using Bluetooth and other wireless connectivity technologies to connect with cloud and back-end systems increases rapidly, nRF Connect for the cloud will become a very important asset,” and added, “This product shortens the transition from device-to-smartphone connectivity, which was previously time-consuming, to device-to-cloud connectivity, and enables Nordic’s wireless products to be easily integrated into large-scale IoT-based systems.”