Do I have to use hardware RTS/CTS handshake with the Laird BLE modules?

We advice to use RTS/CTS hardware handshake on all of our SmartBASIC modules. This will avoid UART buffer overflow and loss of data.

However, if e.g. no hardware handshake signals are available on your host system, you might want to try

• Using XON/XOFF software handshake instead.
• Use not handshake at all but lowering the baud rate significantly. This can prevent buffer overflow to a certain extend but actually depends on your particular application and whether other tasks active on the module would consume processing power.

Make sure to always use the latest SmartBASIC firmware version and check the SmartBASIC and module documentation.

If not using SmartBASIC but implementing an own application with nRF Connect SDK or Zephyr, you are free to not use hardware handshake and implement a proper protocol to avoid buffer overflow on application side.