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rbaron / b-parasite

🌱💧 An open source DIY soil moisture sensor
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Identify BLE device #171

Open andresp opened 6 months ago

andresp commented 6 months ago

I've been flashing a bunch of b-parasites in bulk and was wondering if there is a quick way to read out the BLE MAC?

As a feature request I would suggest implementing an "identify" command that makes the led flash, if that's possible through BT-Home. This could be helpful when provisioning and locating sensors.

rbaron commented 6 months ago

Hey @andresp,

In the ble sample, the MAC address is printed via RTT logging on first boot. This is what I use to check the MAC address. You can also choose your own MAC address via compilation flags.

The identify service is a good idea. The only issue is that currently, to squeeze the battery life to the max, we only advertise for a bit and shut the radio off completely. For an identify service, we'd need to advertise more often and also advertise more non-sensor data, which also consumes extra battery. As most people additionally use a case, the LED is not usually visible for the most part of its operation. I would be fine leaving this behind a config flag, off by default, or having a timer for 10-30 minutes in which the service is active. If someone wants to take a stab at it, I'm happy to review it.

Nerdboy2 commented 3 months ago

I do it with the nRF Connect phone app. I just start a scan in the phone while the sensor is flashing and when it starts to operate the phone/app will pick it up and show the MAC. Super simple. Altough the RTT works aswell

fabian727 commented 1 month ago

there is a button on the device. I didn't go deep into the code. Couldn't it be used to wake up the board and send the MAC?