I’m considering Nerves for a new embedded project, and I see there are several boards supported. Because of my hardware requirements I’m looking at using a BeagleBone Green Wireless with a RS-485 / CAN cape added.
I don’t see BBGW listed on the supported hardware page over at the Nerves site but I do see BBB. Is it possible to use a BBB image on a BBGW? I realize I would need to also use libraries (or write some) to support the BT and WiFi onboard as well as the RS-485 and CAN on the cape.
Like Connor said, the Beaglebone Black system supports more than just the BeagleBone Black. I actively merge in support for Beaglebone-derived boards, so if there are issues, don’t hesitate to file bugs on Github. I usually can guess the problem and just need someone to test out my change when I don’t have the physical hardware.
Also, the BBGW’s WiFi module (TI WL1835MOD) appears to work fine with the latest images. I’m using that module on a work project, so I’ll be supporting it better than other wifi modules in the near-term. I have no plans for Bluetooth support, though. There has been some community interest in an Elixir BLE package for Nerves. For regular Bluetooth, people have been creating custom Nerves systems with Bluez enabled.
Thanks Frank, that’s great to know. I’ll soon be digging into this, but BLE or at least BT support is a critical need. If I understood you correctly, there is BT support available somehow but not BLE. How can I learn more about making BT work?
My recommendation would be to get something simple working on Debian and then port it to Nerves. I would expect almost all Bluetooth examples and docs for Debian to use Bluez. If you have a Linux laptop, you could probably do your BT development there and use a built-in BT module or a BT dongle.
Once you get something working there, then the next step would be to fork the nerves_system_bbb and enable BlueZ. The Nerves docs have some information about creating custom systems and that will hopefully help. Nerves runs on a trimmed down installation of Linux so what you learn about BlueZ in Debian should transfer.
