Bluetooth 4.0 LE Thoughts and Suggestions

[Gallymimu]

Anyone else looking at or using Bluetooth 4.0 LE.  I am starting design on a single mode solution.  I am expecting to use a module as opposed to a single chip solution.  Our volumes for this product don't justify the cost of FCC compliance testing.

I've been looking at a lot of options but have come to BlueGiga and Blue Radios as the best choices for a quick to market solution.  Blue Radios has demonstrated TERRIBLE customer service so far but BlueGiga has been very helpful.

Ideally we want to avoid messing with the stack and would like a simple data interface over SPI or UART to the module/radio to get about 50KBps at fairly low latency (about 10ms would be great) between 2 devices.  Low power is of course another reason for this architecture. 

Anybody else have any thoughts or suggestions.  I know there are several other module makers but they haven't piqued our interest.

[bobcat1]

Hi

You can find module for BT LE base on TI chipset in china about half the price of BG module but they don't have FCC.

All the best

Bobi

[Gallymimu]

Hi

You can find module for BT LE base on TI chipset in china about half the price of BG module but they don't have FCC.

All the best

Bobi

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'm not sure that offers much benefit.  If we have to do FCC we might as well design a custom layout.  Appreciate the thought though.

[nubelube]

@Gallymimu: I'm in the same situation. What did you decide and how has it worked out?

I'm very early in the process, but these are the modules I found based on cost:

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/450-0104/450-0104-ND/3661880 
LS Research TiWi-uB2 Bluetooth Module $8.92 @ 1 quantity

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/ENW-89823A2JF/P14873TR-ND/2699145
Panasonic ENW-89823A2JF  $13.65 @ 500 qty

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/BR-LE4.0-S2A/822-1016-2-ND/2803123
Blue Radios BR-LE4.0-S2A  $15 @ 500 qty

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Bluegiga-Technologies/BLE112-A/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMt1Kg3wsyvxe2VNUu4igQjl
Blue Giga BLE-112  $15.90 @ 100 qty

[Gallymimu]

you can see my comments in my other thread.  We did a lot of research into this and went with bluegiga for a variety of reasons including:

easy to use API, functional scripting language, promise of higher throughput (blueradios said about 1kbyte/sec was max while bluegiga can get up to about 6-7)

avoided panasonic due to mounting nature of the module and available stacks (blueradios or TI)

went away from blueradios because they were real jerks in email and on the phone.

didn't consider LS research since we wanted a single mode module.