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More Info: Consider nRF Connect SDK for new designs

Is DFU update possible from nRF5 SDK to nRF Connect SDK in nRF52832?

DimitraN

We are currently using nRF52832 on a custom board for our product and nRF5 SDK v17.1.0, softdevice s132. Since the  nRF Connect SDK and nRF5 SDK statement we have been considering migrating our product firmware into nRF Connect SDK, in order that it will always be up to date for future Bluetooth LE versions. 
So my questions are:
1. Since we have products in the market, will we be able to update those devices to the new firmware with DFU as we currently use or we will have to flash the devices?
2. Is there an easy way to start the migration, or a guide? 
3. From other questions in the forum, I have come to the conclusion that we will have to use  Visual Studio Code and not Segger Embedded Studio, and that we will have to develop it from scratch, and it will also take a significant amount of time, am I right?

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  • +1

    Hi,

    1. Since we have products in the market, will we be able to update those devices to the new firmware with DFU as we currently use or we will have to flash the devices?

    The short answer is yes, but it is not recommended or supported meaning that you will have to create your own proprietary solution for how to do this.

    2. Is there an easy way to start the migration, or a guide? 

    As mentioned there are no official support for this, but other users have managed to migrate their applications through their own solutions. You can have a look at this ticket  One bootloader to rule them all and the links mentioned in this discussion. 

    As for an "easy way", then the answer is no. It will specially require in depth knowledge of the memory layout of your application, and you will reduce the total available ROM on the device since there are certain parts of the flash storage that you won't be able to replace with NCS (which is mentioned in  RE: Hang with nRF5 SDK 17.1.0 Bootloader and nRF Connect SDK 2.1.0 application which the first case I mentioned discusses). Since you're using the nRF52832 with "only" 512kB of flash, you might find that you don't have enough available flash in  NCS when adding MCUboot and DFU support with dual slots when a section of the flash has to be used for artifacts from the nRF5 application, so this will also be something that you have to consider when designing your new application.

    3. From other questions in the forum, I have come to the conclusion that we will have to use  Visual Studio Code and not Segger Embedded Studio, and that we will have to develop it from scratch, and it will also take a significant amount of time, am I right?

    For NCS you can use any IDE you want, but it is only VS Code and the nRF Connect Extension we have built in Command line support in GUI. So if you're familiar with using west, nrfjprog, etc, you may use whatever you want. Do note that we only support the extension in VS Code and the tools used in the extension, so if you end up wanting to force development in NCS v2.x.x in something other than nRF Connect Extension for VS Code or command line using the tools that the extension uses, you will be left with severely limited support.

    Regarding getting into using NCS in VS Code, I would say the time to learn becomes shorter for every day as we provide better and improved tools as well as courses for getting started and familiarizing yourself with using NCS. You can see them at https://academy.nordicsemi.com/ where nRF Connect SDK Fundamentals  is the recommended starting point, in addition to the Installation and Create an application starting page at https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/nrf/index.html 

    For longevity using nRF devices, there are no better point in time to get started with NCS than today. I would recommend that you consider the time cost of trying to port the application from nRF5 to NCS vs simply starting in NCS up against the cost of not having an update available for the older devices, but both options are possible given that you've designed your new application with ROM restrictions in mind.

    Let me know if this answers your question

    Kind regards,
    Andreas

Reply
  • +1

    Hi,

    1. Since we have products in the market, will we be able to update those devices to the new firmware with DFU as we currently use or we will have to flash the devices?

    The short answer is yes, but it is not recommended or supported meaning that you will have to create your own proprietary solution for how to do this.

    2. Is there an easy way to start the migration, or a guide? 

    As mentioned there are no official support for this, but other users have managed to migrate their applications through their own solutions. You can have a look at this ticket  One bootloader to rule them all and the links mentioned in this discussion. 

    As for an "easy way", then the answer is no. It will specially require in depth knowledge of the memory layout of your application, and you will reduce the total available ROM on the device since there are certain parts of the flash storage that you won't be able to replace with NCS (which is mentioned in  RE: Hang with nRF5 SDK 17.1.0 Bootloader and nRF Connect SDK 2.1.0 application which the first case I mentioned discusses). Since you're using the nRF52832 with "only" 512kB of flash, you might find that you don't have enough available flash in  NCS when adding MCUboot and DFU support with dual slots when a section of the flash has to be used for artifacts from the nRF5 application, so this will also be something that you have to consider when designing your new application.

    3. From other questions in the forum, I have come to the conclusion that we will have to use  Visual Studio Code and not Segger Embedded Studio, and that we will have to develop it from scratch, and it will also take a significant amount of time, am I right?

    For NCS you can use any IDE you want, but it is only VS Code and the nRF Connect Extension we have built in Command line support in GUI. So if you're familiar with using west, nrfjprog, etc, you may use whatever you want. Do note that we only support the extension in VS Code and the tools used in the extension, so if you end up wanting to force development in NCS v2.x.x in something other than nRF Connect Extension for VS Code or command line using the tools that the extension uses, you will be left with severely limited support.

    Regarding getting into using NCS in VS Code, I would say the time to learn becomes shorter for every day as we provide better and improved tools as well as courses for getting started and familiarizing yourself with using NCS. You can see them at https://academy.nordicsemi.com/ where nRF Connect SDK Fundamentals  is the recommended starting point, in addition to the Installation and Create an application starting page at https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/nrf/index.html 

    For longevity using nRF devices, there are no better point in time to get started with NCS than today. I would recommend that you consider the time cost of trying to port the application from nRF5 to NCS vs simply starting in NCS up against the cost of not having an update available for the older devices, but both options are possible given that you've designed your new application with ROM restrictions in mind.

    Let me know if this answers your question

    Kind regards,
    Andreas

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