Over the past years Elektor has published quite a lot of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 4.0 projects based on the BL600 module from Laird. Low-cost and programmable in smartBasic the BL600 is a versatile yet easy-to-use module. By loading it with a different firmware it can be transformed into a BL620 BLE master module. Recently the BL600 series has been extended with the BL652, a Cortex-M4 based module four times faster than the BL600.

The BL652 module is based on the Nordic BLE nRF52 chipset and offers Bluetooth Smart v4.2 capabilities and ultra-low power performance. The hardware is compatible with version 5 of the Bluetooth specifications and firmware supporting the upcoming standard including the new advertising extensions will be released soon.

Besides supporting the latest BT standards, the module also features NFC and peripherals like UART, I2C, SPI, ADC, GPIO, PWM, etc. A much larger flash memory than the BL600 allows for bigger application and offers more data storage space. Although the BL652 is not pin-compatible with the BL600, all smartBASIC programs that run on BL600 will run on BL652. Additionally, and unlike the BL600, the BL652 can be a master or a slave without loading different firmwares.

Photo: Laird