The Great Search: Bluetooth LE Modules with nRF5 Chipset

Adafruit Industries

This week we've been doing some more toy hacking on a 2017 edition Teddy Ruxpin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Ruxpin) - this toy has a SONIX SN7001 plus an nRF51 module (https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%2026/DEF%20CON%2026%20presentations/DEFCON-26-Amir-Etemadieh-Zenofex-Dissecting-Teddy-Ruxpin-Reverse-Engineering-the-Smart%20Bear.pdf) for the Bluetooth LE connectivity to an app. Why not an all-in-one BLE chipset? Well perhaps now-a-days you'd be able to run the whole thing off of an nRF52 or nRF53 but at the time the SONIX chip was probably a well-trod core for many toys, with ready-to-go SDK and a Cortex M4 for audio / graphics handling, and the nRF51 was one of the only reliable BLE chips available. You may also want to add BLE to an existing design, DigiKey has lots of BLE modules that you can use either for standalone or as a 'BLE friend forever' - a.k.a. BFF! Let's check out what's available for your modulating needs. See on DigiKey at https://www.digikey.com/short/bbw04mfh