Two weeks ago Nordic launched officially the nRF54L15 Tag – a tiny, dual-antenna prototyping platform for asset tags, Bluetooth trackers and smart wearables
Powered by their next-generation multiprotocol wireless nRF54L15-QGAA-R7 SoC and operated by a CR2032 coin-cell battery, the nRF54L15-TAG enables prototyping products – compatible with Apple Find My and Google Find Hub – with multiple antennas. This results in improved robustness for Bluetooth® Channel Sounding.
The sensor selection is optimized for cost-efficient prototyping for trackers, edge AI and Matter smart home products, enabling:
- Low-power accelerometers for motion-triggered wake-ups and extended battery life
- High-accuracy six-axis IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) for edge AI, sensor fusion, wearables, AR/VR and much more
- Environmental sensors for measuring temperature, humidity, air pressure and gas concentration – ideal for a Matter weather station application
What you’ll need
- NRF54L15-TAG + CR2032 coin-cell battery – provided in the kit (for direct replacement use CR2032
as BATTERY LITHIUM 3V COIN from Jauch Quartz’ European warehouse as Marketplace vendor) - nRF54 Series Development Kit (DK NRF54L15-DK) or an nRF91 Series DK (NRF9151-DK) +
USB-C cable can be ordered separately- Alternatively: SEGGER J-Link Debugger (8.19.00 as J-LINK BASE COMPACT from
Segger Microcontroller Systems) – for professionals familiar with it
- Alternatively: SEGGER J-Link Debugger (8.19.00 as J-LINK BASE COMPACT from
What’s programmed out-of-the-box
The NRF54L15-TAG includes a CR2032 coin-cell battery in the holder, separated by a small tab from the contacts.
To power the tag, pull out the tab. The RGB LED will start blinking, indicating the tag is powered and running the preprogrammed
Peripheral LED Button Service (LBS) sample.
Note: The preprogrammed Peripheral LBS sample is not power-optimized. Program the tag with a lower-power
sample after unboxing and verifying functionality. We will cover programming in a later section.
Before programming the NRF54L15-TAG with different firmware, ensure the tag is advertising correctly.
1st, install nRF Toolbox on your phone.
The app is available on Play Store and App Store; find more information on its product page via the link above.
Bluetooth Fast Pair Locator tag
Bluetooth Fast Pair: Locator tag demonstrates a Bluetooth tracker device that is compatible with Google Find Hub and the Android Find Hub app. Bluetooth trackers are typically small tags that can be attached to your belongings – but all kinds of Bluetooth device can employ Find Hub. Devices that are compatible with Find Hub or Find My allow their locations to be securely tracked by their owner using crowdsourced Bluetooth networks for long-range tracking and Precision Finding technologies such as Bluetooth Channel Sounding and Ultra-Wide-Band for proximity tracking – note that UWB is not natively supported by NRF54L15-CAAA-R.
Note: Any Bluetooth device – not just dedicated tracker tags – can become Find My compatible and allow their
location to be found by their owner using either ecosystem. This means: if your product is, for example an e-bike,
a smart watch or an electric toothbrush, you can add Find My capabilities for value-add on top of your application.
Bluetooth Channel Sounding
Bluetooth Channel Sounding enables true distance measurement between two devices with sub-meter accuracy, built-in security features and seamless interoperability. It is a connection-oriented point-to-point technology, where one device acts as the Initiator sending the initial tone and processing the ranging algorithm, and the other device acts as the Reflector that simply transmits the signal back to the Initiator.
The NRF54L15-TAG serves as an excellent Bluetooth Channel Sounding Reflector because it is battery-operated, pocket-sized, and features dual antennas that enhance robustness during Bluetooth Channel Sounding ranging. Dual antennas also enable developers to apply more advanced ranging algorithms for improved accuracy and stability. To test the NRF54L15-TAG’s performance with a Channel Sounding enabled smartphone such as the Google Pixel 10, please see the DevZone blog Evaluating Bluetooth®︎ Channel Sounding with our open-source Android app on Google Pixel 10.
The Channel Sounding Reflectors require less processing and less power than Initiators. Typical Reflectors include IoT tags, trackers, key fobs, and wearables, which require a small form factor and reliable, fast RF communication, making the NRF54L15-TAG an ideal prototyping platform for these applications.
The NRF54L15-TAG can also serve as a Bluetooth Channel Sounding Initiator. As mentioned, initiators consume more power because they typically run the algorithm to process ranging data. Therefore the NRF54L15-TAG is better suited as the Reflector, with the Initiator being a smartphone or another embedded device, such as the NRF54L15-DK.
Matter weather station
The Matter weather station is an application in nRF Connect SDK that demonstrates the use of the Matter application layer to build a weather station that measures weather data using different sensors. The NRF54L15-TAG is ideal for this use case, as it includes an environmental sensor that can measure temperature, humidity, air pressure and gas concentration.
The application uses the user-configurable button on the NRF54L15-TAG to control the device state. The weather station periodically measures temperature, air pressure, and relative humidity. These measurement results are stored in the device’s memory and can be accessed through a Matter controller. The controller communicates with the weather station using the Matter protocol and exchanges data according to the Matter Data Model.
Additional sensors and buttons
The NRF54L15-TAG also supports expansion to accessible GPIO on the nRF54L15 SoC. There are footprints for additional buttons and sensors that can be added on the tag: The recommended part numbers are shown in parentheses.
- BTN2 - A user-programmable button (KMT021 NGJ LHS as SWITCH TACTILE SPST-NO 0.05A 32V of C&K)
- RST - A reset button (KMT021 NGJ LHS as SWITCH TACTILE SPST-NO 0.05A 32V of C&K)
- LED2 - A user-programmable LED (APHF1608LSEEQBDZGKC as LED RGB CLEAR 4SMD of Kingbright)
- Buzzer to act as a speaker (PKMCS0909E48H0-R1 as BUZZER PIEZO 2.5V 9X9MM W SMD of Murata Electronics)
- External memory (MX25R6435FZBIH3 –> MX25R6435FZAIH0 as IC FLASH 64MBIT SPI/QUAD 8WSON of Macronix)
You may find the footprints marked in the diagrams above and in the hardware files, as well as in the silkscreen. In the schematic (pca20072_schematic_and_pcb.pdf), you may click on the components in the Misc. section to find more information about the specific part numbers for each component or find them listed in the BoM (pca20072_bom_ems.xls).
Visit LinkedIn for more information on LinkedIn about the NRF54L15-TAG.
Here comes the story from Nordic’s Bluetooth Low Energy solution: The go-to choice for developers NordicTech webinar: https://youtu.be/ey9ANU1dXWs?si=-IfgQ9LzEOweb1l6&t=30
Closing
In this blog post, we discussed the features and ideal use cases of the recently launched NRF54L15-TAG and learned how to get started with software development and prototyping with it.
Let us know in the comments what use cases you plan for the NRF54L15-TAG – we love hearing stories directly from developers, makers, professional engineers !