Dumb Questions on the SoftDevice

[AMarch01]

I have been looking at BLE with the Nordic products from the perspective of someone who gets a hand wave of an idea and moves forward. I have developed Nordic firmware but not actually "learned the SDK" to any major degree past what I needed to get ESB or Matter to operate. 

From my perspective in using the old SDK, Bluetooth required integration of binary blobs called Softdevices. These had code numbers like S110 or S140. 

With the newer code using Zephyr, there now the opportunity of compiling Zephyr sources Bluetooth control (called the LE Controller under the Zephyr docs).

There is still mention of the Softdevice, but now it's a library that you compile inside of zephyr.

Are the old softdevice names of S140 and such no longer used then? Is the Softdevice used with Zephyr projects recompiled to operate with Zephyr?

[Simonr]

Hi Anthony

The old SoftDevices and their numbers are no longer used in the nRF Connect SDK, that is correct. The SoftDevice controller and Zephyr controllers have taken over this role in the Zephyr based nRF Connect SDK. I hope that clears things up for you. Some more details on the SoftDevice and the LE controllers in NCS can be found in the nRF Connect SDK vs nRF5 SDK statement post available here.

Best regards,

Simon

[AMarch01]

Thats great. Like I said, I have been working with Nordic over the years (5) but not with Bluetooth, which is fairly unusual for this group these days.

[AMarch01]

Side note, you should drop this link and "Debunking misconceptions: A technical analysis of nRF5 SDK and nRF Connect SDK" in the educational front page and label it something like, "Start moving beyond nrf5 SDK and into nRF Connect SDK!" 

[Simonr]

Thank you for the suggestion Anthony. I've forwarded it to the correct people and we'll look into adding these links to the DevAcademy front page.

Best regards,

Simon