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WICED SMART FAQ

WICED SMART FAQ

Anonymous
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What is WICED SMART™?

  • WICED SMART™ is a very low power family of pin compatible modules, which when paired with the included software development kit, vastly reduces the effort required to add Bluetooth Smart (previously known as Bluetooth Low Energy) wireless connectivity to embedded applications. The WICED SMART™ SDK enables developers to quickly create applications targeted for low power embedded devices connecting to Bluetooth Smart devices such as smart phones and tablets.

 

What is included in the WICED SMART™ SDK?

 

The WICED SMART™ SDK includes :

  • Documentation and links to an open source build system and tool chain based on GNU make
  • Guide to using a GUI IDE based on Eclipse and links for SW
  • A complete software/application library that includes support for all Bluetooth Low Energy functionality and profiles
  • Documentation and header files
  • Production ready example applications

 

How much does the SDK cost?

  • The SDK is available free for use with the Broadcom WICED SMART™ Development Kit.

 

Which Operating Systems does the SDK run on?

  • The WICED Smart SDK runs on 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows. Support for OS X and Linux support was added in the SDK 2.x release.
  • Note: You will also want to make sure you download the latest FTDI USB to Serial Driver as well: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
  • Note that the WICED Sense evaluation platform utilizes a Silicon Labs USB to Serial device, and you can find the drivers for it here: USB to UART Bridge VCP Drivers | Silicon Labs

 

Which version of the Java Runtime Environment is Required?

  • The WICED SMART SDK utilizes a 32-bit version of an Eclipse based IDE which requires a 32-bit version of JRE to be installed. If you have the 64-bit JRE installed you will need to install the 32-bit version as well. The JRE is designed to allow both 32 and 64 bit variants to be installed on the same system.

 

Is the stack included with the SDK?

  • Broadcom’s WICED SMART™ solution is designed for ease of use and rapid prototyping. A complete BT 4.1 stack together with several profiles and applications are embedded in ROM. Hooks to exercise the stack and profiles are provided in libraries provided with the SDK library. A complete solution that includes a stack, profiles, libraries and examples makes it easy to write Bluetooth Smart applications with the WICED SMART SDK.

 

 

How much Flash and RAM does my application need?

  • Since the BT 4.1 stack is already embedded inside Broadcom Bluetooth Smart chips, applications have access to a large percentage of the RAM available on the chip. The actual RAM available for an application depends on the chip and firmware being leveraged.

 

 

Where do I buy WICED SMART™ evaluation boards?

  • WICED SMART™ modules and evaluation boards are available from Broadcom, ODMs and third-party distributionPartners
  • Order Here: WICED Smart Partners

 

 

Does WICED SMART™ support any Smartphone or Tablet applications?

  • Yes. Smartphone and Tablet apps with a multi-purpose GUI to benchmark WICED SMART™ applications are available for iOS and Android.

 

Does the WICED SMART™ SDK enable Bluetooth Smart data aggregation and connectivity to the internet?

  • Yes. When used in conjuction with the SmartBridge™ feature of the WICED Wi-Fi SDK, data from Bluetooth Smart devices is aggregated and bridged to the internet with Broadcom Wi-Fi. Alternately, Bluetooth Smart data may be bridged to the internet using a custom smartphone or tablet application.

 

Where do I get support?

  • General support for the WICED Smart™ Development System is available on the WICED SMART™ forum and through our distributionPartners
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Comments
Anonymous
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Says it works on OSX? But when I got the kit it only seems to work on Windows 7?

Anonymous
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There is a Windows installer, and also a more generic 7zip file that has binaries that can be run on other platforms.

Anonymous
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To be clear: the IDE only runs on Windows; but the toolchain is available for Linux and OSX.

Anonymous
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Where can I find the instructions to use command line tools on OS X to build/compile the source code?

I see some binaries in WICED/Tools folder, but I have no idea which one and how to use them.

Thanks,

Mehrdad

MichaelF_56
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While the WICED Smart SDK is only supported under WIndows today, you should technically be able to build an OSX version of the SDK from the command line (Eclipse integration has not been tested yet).

We are looking into providing support for the MAC in SDK version 2.0.

Anonymous
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Can I port an OS to the chip, such as FreeRTOS?

MichaelF_56
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The BLE Stack and Profiles are included and run onboard the integrated Cortex M3 device in it's ROM.  Patches are included in the onboard EEPROM on the module and are linked against your application during programmaing and automatically loaded into the available 30K of RAM.  Very much a stand-alone environment for BLE. I'm not sure what you would need to port to FreeRTOS.

MichaelF_56
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Note that unlike the familiar TAG boards that we provide for BLE development which use a FTDI based USB to Serial device and associated drivers, the WICED Sense Evaluation Kits use a Silicon Labs part and you will need to download the drivers for it per the FAQ here: WICED SMART FAQ

J.T has also created a series of getting started videos and posted them to the WICED Sense blog, so you guys should find those helpful as well.