Hi,
I'm new here. I'm working on a project that involves a light and being able to control that light with a smartphone over bluetooth. While I do know a little about electronics, I definitely don't know enough to do this project. So I've hired an electronics engineer to build and program it for me. Right now he is building the prototype. If all goes well this will then go into production. The question I have is with choosing the bluetooth chip. He is recommending something like this. These chips range between $10 to $16. This would be fine for a couple of prototypes but way too expensive for production. If it were your project how would you go about choosing a bluetooth chip with planning on going into production? I know there must be much cheaper routes considering you can buy an entire BT headset for $15. Please let me know your thoughts. I told him I would do the research on this since he is working on other aspects of the project.
Lastly is there any drawback to using bluetooth 4? Is it backwards compatible. So someone with say an iPhone 3 could still connect?
Here are a couple links that might give you an idea of what I'm after:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/19/bluetooth-bulb-lets-you-switch-on-time-dim-and-color/
http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=22715
Thank you to everyone for your help!
Don
I'm new here. I'm working on a project that involves a light and being able to control that light with a smartphone over bluetooth. While I do know a little about electronics, I definitely don't know enough to do this project. So I've hired an electronics engineer to build and program it for me. Right now he is building the prototype. If all goes well this will then go into production. The question I have is with choosing the bluetooth chip. He is recommending something like this. These chips range between $10 to $16. This would be fine for a couple of prototypes but way too expensive for production. If it were your project how would you go about choosing a bluetooth chip with planning on going into production? I know there must be much cheaper routes considering you can buy an entire BT headset for $15. Please let me know your thoughts. I told him I would do the research on this since he is working on other aspects of the project.
Lastly is there any drawback to using bluetooth 4? Is it backwards compatible. So someone with say an iPhone 3 could still connect?
Here are a couple links that might give you an idea of what I'm after:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/19/bluetooth-bulb-lets-you-switch-on-time-dim-and-color/
http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=22715
Thank you to everyone for your help!
Don
