Setting up your BlueFruit

Setting up your bluefruit is fairly straightforward, but there are a couple of things you will need to do. They are (almost) all documented on the AdaFruit website BlueFruit page. Some things you will need to do:

  • Install the Arduino software
  • Open Preferences and put ‘https://adafruit.github.io/arduino-board-index/package_adafruit_index.json’ in the Additional Boards Manager URL
  • Open Tools>Board…>Board Manager
  • Click on Adafruit nRF52 and click ‘Install’
  • Quit and re-open the Arduino IDE
  • Check if you have succeeded. You should be able to select the Bluefruit board from the Boards menu, select the correct port from Tools>Port and upload a sketch!

OS-specific Install Instructions

  • If you are on a mac, you will additionally need to install the USB to UART bridge drivers provided by Silabs. Be sure (within 30 minutes of install) to approve it in the Security and Privacy settings for your mac (you’ll see a button for this below “Allow apps downloaded from…”).
  • If you are Windows, you may need to install a driver (I did not have to on the windows machine in our classroom).
  • Check if you have succeeded. You should see a USB port in your Arduino Ports menu

Additional Software

  • You will need the Bluefruit LE Connect app on your phone, and here is the AdaFruit website describing how to install that
  • You’ll want the Bluefruit libraries and sample code. Go to Tools>Manage Libraries and search for bluefruit. Install the Adafruit BluefruitLE nRF51 suite

Sketches used in class

You can download the sketches used in our class from our class google drive, arduino folder.