Nordic Thingy:52 for Web Bluetooth

About Thingy:52

The Nordic Thingy:52™ is a compact, power-optimized, multi-sensor development kit. It is an easy-to-use development platform, designed to help you build IoT prototypes and demos, without the need to build hardware or write firmware. Read more about it here.

This repository

This repository is an attempt to make it easier to start developing applications for Thingy:52 using Web Bluetooth. Web Bluetooth is a JavaScript API that makes it possible to communicate with Bluetooth Low Energy devices in web browsers. The implementation status for different browsers and platforms can be seen here.

This is work in progress, and for now this repository will help you connect to a Thingy:52 and access all services and characteristics except for MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit):

Get started

Clone or download this repository.
If you've used this repository, you can serve index.html using any http server. You can then navigate to the server address in a supported browser and open the console (ctrl + shift + J or cmd + alt + J).
Turn on your Thingy:52.
Click the "Connect" button found on the page.
You can now choose your Thingy:52 and connect to it.
In the console, you can see the browser connect to the device and discover its services.
When connected, the Thingy:52 will use the LED breathe feature and the LED will pulsate with a RED light.
In the browser, it will also show the current temperature measured by the device in the HTML element below the connect button.

Examples

The following example will first connect to a thingy:52 with the option logEnabled set to false, then subscribe to and log all incoming data from the temperature sensor. After that we will request the device's name, before setting it to "Thingy". In the end, we set a timeout for 10 secounds before we disconnect from the device.

import Thingy from "./js/thingy.js";

const thingy = new Thingy({logEnabled: false});

function myLoggingFunction(data) {
    const temperatureData = data.detail;
    console.log(temperatureData);
}

async function start(device) {
    try {
        await device.connect();
        
        device.addEventListener("temperature", myLoggingFunction);
        await device.temperature.start();
        
        const deviceName = await device.name.read();
        console.log(deviceName);

        await device.name.write("Thingy");

        setTimeout(async () => {
        await device.disconnect();
        console.log("Disconnected from the device");
        }, 10000);
        
    } catch (error) {
        console.error(error);
    }
}

start(thingy);

The following example will first connect to a thingy:52, and then read the current LED configuration. In the end we will set the LED to breathe mode, with an intensity of 50% and a delay of 1 second.

import Thingy from "./js/thingy.js";

const thingy = new Thingy();

async function start(device) {
    try {
        await device.connect();

        const currentLedConfiguration = await device.led.read();
        console.log(currentLedConfiguration);
        
        const newLedConfiguration = {
            mode: "breathe",
            color: "cyan",
            intensity: 50,
            delay: 1000,
        }
        
        await device.led.write(newLedConfiguration);  
    } catch (error) {
        console.error(error);
    }
}

start(thingy);

Note: the Web Bluetooth API requires that a function trying to connect to a BLE device is initiated by a user action such as a mouse click.

API documentation

Thingy offers several features, all of which rely on established BLE protocols for sending and receiving data. The BLE operations are abstracted away through the following operations:

Operation	Description
start/stop	Subscribes to a feature and relays any incoming data from that feature as an event to the device object.
read	Reads data from the specified feature on Thingy.
write	Writes data to the specified feature on Thingy.

Note: If any connect/start/stop operation is unsuccessful due to network congestion, the method is queued and and re-tried at a later time. If the operation continues to complete unsuccessfully, an event will be dispatched on thingy.operationdiscarded.

Event	Description
thingy.error	An event with this name is emitted on any and all errors. The event contains information about the error, as well as the feature and operation that caused the error to occur.
thingy.operationdiscarded	An event with this name is emitted whenever a connect/start/stop operation is discarded on one of Thingy's features. The event contains information about the operation that was cancelled along with a function call.
thingy.write	An event with this name is emitted whenever a successful write operation has been performed. The event contains information about the feature that triggered the write operation, as well as the value that written.

Supported operations

Feature	Start/Stop	Read	Write
Absolute orientation	Yes	No	No
Advertising parameters	No	Yes	Yes
Battery	Yes	Yes	No
Button	Yes	No	No
Cloud token	No	Yes	Yes
Color	Yes	No	No
Connection parameters	No	Yes	Yes
DFU	Yes	No	Yes
Eddystone url	No	Yes	Yes
Environment configuration	No	Yes	Yes
Euler orientation	Yes	No	No
Firmware	No	Yes	No
Gas	Yes	No	No
Gravity vector	Yes	No	No
Heading	Yes	No	No
Humidity	Yes	No	No
LED	No	Yes	Yes
Microphone	Yes	No	No
Motion configuration	No	Yes	Yes
MTU	No	Yes	Yes
Name	No	Yes	Yes
Pressure	Yes	No	No
Quaternion orientation	Yes	No	No
Raw data	Yes	No	No
Rotation matrix orientation	Yes	No	No
Sound configuration	No	Yes	Yes
Speaker Data	No	No	Yes
Speaker Status	Yes	No	No
Step counter	Yes	No	No
Tap	Yes	No	No
Temperature	Yes	No	No

Below you can find extended information on each feature Thingy supports, as well as information about the parameters required to interact with them.

Thingy

Thingy

Parameters

options (optional, default {logEnabled:true})

Absolute Orientation

thingy.absoluteorientation

event: absoluteorientation

Allows interaction with the connected device's absolute orientation sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending absolute orientation data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending absolute orientation data from the connected device.

Advertising Parameters

thingy.advertisingparameters

Allows interaction with the connected device's advertising parameters

Supported operations

read - Reads the connected device's advertising parameters.
write - Writes the advertising parameters of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Object:
    - interval (Advertising interval). Integer in the range 20 to 5000 (20ms to 5s)
    - timeout (Advertising timeout). Integer in the range 0 to 180 (0s to 3min)

Battery

thingy.battery

event: battery

Allows interaction with the connected device's battery level

Supported operations

start - Starts sending battery level data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending battery level data from the connected device.
read - Reads the connected device's battery level.

Button

thingy.button

event: button

Allows interaction with the connected device's button

Supported operations

start - Starts sending button data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending button data from the connected device.

Cloud Token

thingy.cloudtoken

Allows interaction with the connected device's cloud token service

Supported operations

read - Reads the cloud token currently written to the connected device.
write - Writes the cloud token of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Cloud token - String shorter than or equal to 250 characters.

Color

thingy.color

event: color

Allows interaction with the connected device's color sensor (not LED)

Supported operations

start - Starts sending color data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending color data from the connected device.

Connection Parameters

thingy.connectionparameters

Allows interaction with the connected device's connection parameters

Supported operations

read - Reads the connected device's connection parameters.
write - Writes the connection parameters of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Object:
    - minInterval (Minimum connection interval). Number in the range 7.5 to 4000 (7.5ms to 4s)
    - maxInterval (Maximum connection interval). Number in the range 7.5 to 4000 (7.5ms to 4s)
    - slaveLatency (Slave latency - number of connection events). Integer in the range 0 to 499
    - timeout (Supervision timeout). Integer in the range 100 to 32000 (100ms to 32s)

DFU

thingy.dfucontrolpoint_v1 thingy.dfucontrolpoint_v2

Allows interaction with the connected device's DFU service (Device Firmware Upgrade). Note that depending on which firmware version the Thingy has, the characteristic is different. If the firmware is version 1.x, use the 'thingy.dfucontrolpoint_v1' characteristic. If it is 2.x, use the 'thingy.dfucontrolpoint_v2' characteristic. This is due to a change in the UUID of the service from firmware version 1.1.0 to 2.0.0.

Supported operations

start - Starts sending notifications from the DFU control point characteristic.
stop - Stops sending notifications from the DFU control point characteristic.
write - Writes to the DFU control point characteristic.
- Parameters:
  - Number - Write the number 1 to put the device in DFU mode, enabling Device Firmware Update. This will disconnect the device and it can be reconnected to with the name 'thingyDfu'. To execute the DFU transfer, an external library such as this can be used.

Eddystone Url

thingy.eddystone

Allows interaction with the connected device's eddystone url service

Supported operations

read - Reads the connected device's eddystone url.
write - Writes the eddystone url of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Eddystone url - String between 3 and 17 characters, according to this format

Environment Configuration

thingy.environmentconfiguration

Allows interaction with the connected device's environment configuration

Supported operations

read - Reads the connected device's current environment configuration.
write - Writes the environment configuration of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Object:
    - temperatureInterval (Temperature sensor update interval in ms). Integer in the range 100 ms to 60 000 ms.
    - pressureInterval (Pressure sensor update interval in ms). Integer in the range 50 ms to 60 000 ms.
    - humidityInterval (Humidity sensor update interval in ms). Integer in the range 100 ms to 60 000 ms.
    - colorInterval (Color sensor update interval in ms). Integer in the range 200 ms to 60 000 ms.
    - gasInterval (Gas sensor update interval in seconds). Allowed values are 1, 10 and 60 seconds.
    - Object colorSensorCalibration (Configures color sensor calibration parameters):
      - red - Integer in the range 0 to 255
      - green - Integer in the range 0 to 255
      - blue - Integer in the range 0 to 255

Euler Orientation

thingy.eulerorientation

event: eulerorientation

Allows interaction with the connected device's euler orientation sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending euler orientation data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending euler orientation data from the connected device.

Firmware

thingy.firmware

Allows interaction with the connected device's firmware service

Supported operations

read - Reads the current firmware version deployed on the device.

Gas

thingy.gas

event: gas

Allows interaction with the connected device's gas sensor (co2 and tvoc)

Supported operations

start - Starts sending gas data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending gas data from the connected device.

Gravity vector

thingy.gravityvector

event: gravityvector

Allows interaction with the connected device's gravity vector sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending gravity vector data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending gravity vector data from the connected device.

Heading

thingy.heading

event: heading

Allows interaction with the connected device's heading sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending heading data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending heading data from the connected device.

Humidity

thingy.humidity

event: humidity

Allows interaction with the connected device's humidity sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending humidity data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending humidity data from the connected device.

LED

thingy.led

Allows interaction with the connected device's LED

Supported operations

read - reads the connected device's current LED configuration.
write - Writes the LED configuration of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Object:
    - mode - Mode of the LED. Can be one of the following: constant, breathe, oneshot, off.
    - mode = constant:
      - red - Integer in the range 0 to 255
      - green - Integer in the range 0 to 255
      - blue - Integer in the range 0 to 255
    - mode = breathe:
      - color - Either a recognized color (red, green, yellow, blue, purple, cyan, white), or an integer in the range 1 to 7
      - intensity - Integer in the range 0 to 100
      - delay - Delay between each breathe (unit ms). Integer in the range 50 to 10 000
    - mode = oneshot:
      - color - Integer in the range 1 to 7
      - intensity: Integer in the range 0 to 100

Microphone

thingy.microphone

event: microphone

Allows interaction with the connected device's microphone

Supported operations

start - Starts sending microphone data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending microphone data from the connected device.

Motion Configuration

thingy.motionconfiguration

Allows interaction with the connected device's motion configuration

Supported operations

read - Reads the connected device's current motion configuration.
write - Writes the motion configuration of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Object:
    - stepCounterInterval (Sets the step counter interval). Must be in the range 100 ms to 5000 ms.
    - tempCompensationInterval (Sets the temperature compensation interval). Must be in the range 100 ms to 5000 ms.
    - magnetCompInterval (Sets the magnetometer compensation interval). Must be in the range 100 ms to 1000 ms.
    - motionProcessFrequency (Sets motion processing unit update frequency). Must be in the range 5 Hz to 200 Hz.
    - wakeOnMotion (Sets wake-on-motion feature to enabled or disabled state). Set to true to enable or false to disable wake-on-motion feature.

MTU

thingy.mtu

Allows interaction with the connected device's MTU service (Maximum Transmission Unit)

Supported operations

read - Reads the MTU of the connected device.
write - Writes the MTU of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - MTU - Integer in the range 23 to 276.

Name

thingy.name

Allows interaction with the connected device's name service

Supported operations

read - Reads the name of the connected device.
write - Writes the name of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Name - String shorter than or equal to 10 characters.

Pressure

thingy.pressure

event: pressure

Allows interaction with the connected device's pressure sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending pressure data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending pressure data from the connected device.

Quaternion orientation

thingy.quaternionorientation

event: quaternionorientation

Allows interaction with the connected device's quaternion orientation sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending quaternion orientation data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending quaternion orientation data from the connected device.

Raw data

thingy.rawdata

event: rawdata

Allows interaction with the connected device's raw data sensor (includes accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass)

Supported operations

start - Starts sending raw data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending raw data from the connected device.

Rotation matrix orientation

thingy.rotationmatrixorientation

event: rotationmatrixorientation

Allows interaction with the connected device's rotation matrix orientation sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending rotation matrix orientation data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending rotation matrix orientation data from the connected device.

Sound Configuration

thingy.soundconfiguration

Allows interaction with the connected device's sound configuration

Supported operations

read - Reads the connected device's current sound configuration.
write - Writes the sound configuration of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Object:
    - speakerMode (Sets the speaker mode). Must be one of the integers:
      - 1 - Frequency mode.
      - 2 - 8-bit PCM mode (used for streaming audio to Thingy).
      - 3 - Sample mode.
    - microphoneMode (Sets the microphone mode). Must be one of the integers:
      - 1 - ADPCM mode.
      - 2 - SPL mode.

Speaker Data

thingy.speakerdata

Allows interaction with the connected device's speaker data. Note that speaker mode has to be set to the desired mode beforehand by writing to Sound Configuration.

Supported operations

write - Writes to the speaker of the connected device.
- Parameters:
  - Object:
    - mode - Mode of the speaker. Can be one of the following: 1, 2 or 3.
    - mode = 1:
      - frequency - Frequency in Hz. Integer larger than 0.
      - duration - Duration in ms. Integer larger than 0.
      - volume - Volume in %. Integer in the range 0 to 100.
    - mode = 2:
      - data - 8-bit PCM samples. Audio data of size between 20-273 bytes. See audiostream.html in examples folder for example
    - mode = 3:
      - sample - Sample ID. Integer in the range 0 to 8

Speaker Status

thingy.speakerstatus

event: speakerstatus

Allows interaction with the connected device's speaker status

Supported operations

start - Starts sending the speaker status from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending the speaker status from the connected device.

Step counter

thingy.stepcounter

event: stepcounter

Allows interaction with the connected device's step counter sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending step counter data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending step counter data from the connected device.

Tap

thingy.tap

event: tap

Allows interaction with the connected device's tap sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending tap data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending tap data from the connected device.

Temperature

thingy.temperature

event: temperature

Allows interaction with the connected device's temperature sensor

Supported operations

start - Starts sending temperature data from the connected device.
stop - Terminates sending temperature data from the connected device.

NordicPlayground/Nordic-Thingy52-Thingyjs

Nordic Thingy:52 for Web Bluetooth

Get started

Examples

API documentation

Supported operations

Thingy

Absolute Orientation

Advertising Parameters

Battery

Button

Cloud Token

Color

Connection Parameters

DFU

Eddystone Url

Environment Configuration

Euler Orientation

Firmware

Gas

Gravity vector

Heading

Humidity

LED

Microphone

Motion Configuration

MTU

Name

Pressure

Quaternion orientation

Raw data

Rotation matrix orientation

Sound Configuration

Speaker Data

Speaker Status

Step counter

Tap

Temperature