DESCRIPTION
The RN41 is a small form factor, low power, simple to integrate Bluetooth radio for OEMs adding wireless capability to their products.
The RN41 is perfect for battery powered applications and by default is ready to use in the SPP (Serial Port Profile) configuration. It uses only 250 µA in sleep mode while still being discoverable and connectable. Multiple low power modes available allow you to dial in the lowest power profile for your application.
The RN41 supports multiple Bluetooth profiles, is fully certified, and is simple to design in, making it a complete embedded Bluetooth solution.
With its high performance on-chip antenna and support for Bluetooth Enhanced Data Rate (EDR), the RN41 delivers up to 3 Mbps data rate for distances to 100 meters. The RN41 is the perfect product for engineers adding Bluetooth capability to their product without spending significant time and money to develop Bluetooth specific hardware and software.
The RN41 can be configured in different modes:
HCI Mode: In this mode the Bluetooth stack is running on an external processor (not on RN41)
There are two possible hardware interface options:
- UART: This is called HCI over H4. The external processor running the stack is interfaced to the RN41 using the UART interface. The baud rate at which the RN41 talks to the processor is fixed and needs to be programmed (in the RN41) during the firmware flash process. Customers need to specify this while ordering.
- USB: In this mode, the RN41 is interfaced to the external processor using a USB interface. The RN41 acts as a USB slave (not a USB host).
The key advantage of HCI mode is that it allows customers to run custom profiles on their processor. It also provides fast data rates (up to 3 Mbps).
HID mode: Roving now offers HID device profile support for the RN41/42. It allows customers to create HID devices such as keyboards, mouse, pointing devices, etc.
Click here for the latest firmware
Starting with firmware 6.10, Roving Networks RN41, RN42, RN41XV and RN42XV modules support both SPP and HID in the same module. By default, the bluetooth module powers up in SPP profile mode. It can be switched to HID by issuing S~,6 command in CMD mode or by pulling high GPIO11 (Pin 9 on XV modules) during power up.
