[Zigbee] Future Plans for Zigbee Development in nRF Connect SDK

[Pawel(embeddedsolutions.pl)]

Hi,

I would like to ask about the future plans for Zigbee development, as the current situation is a bit confusing.

From what I’ve observed, Zigbee R22 has been deprecated in nRF Connect SDK v2.8.0.
I’m using nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0 and can still build my application using the CONFIG_ZIGBEE symbol, but of course, I receive a deprecation warning during the build.

To stay up to date, I looked into the Zigbee R22 add-on.
It appears to be another Zephyr type module.
However, the Software Requirements suggest initializing it with west using this repository.
The issue is that this repository (ncs-zigbee-r22) does not exist.
What does exist, however, is ncs-zigbee.
which seems to be Zigbee R23 targeting the nRF54L series.

I would like following things to be clarified:

• How can I stay up to date with Zigbee for the nRF52 series?
• Will Zigbee R23 support the nRF52 series, or will it be exclusive to the nRF54 series?
• Will Zigbee come back as built in nRF Connect SDK lib or will it remain as external Zephyr type module?

Thanks in advance!

[Edvin]

Hello,

The R22 for nRF52 and nRF53 will not be deprecated, but it will be put in maintenance mode. Right now, you can use it as you have done before, but in the future there will be some changes. I believe they will pull it out of the "normal" NCS, and add it as an addon, but I believe this is not yet ready.

For timelines regarding this, please reach out to our Sales Team (from the link in Kenneth's reply).

Best regards,

Edvin

[Edvin]

Hello,

I just wanted to clarify a couple of things, after speaking with our Zigbee team.

If you build a Zigbee sample in NCS v2.9.0 or earlier, it will use the R22. You can use this for the nRF52 and 53 series. However, in future releases, the Zigbee stack and samples will be removed from the SDK, and it will be available as an add-on.

Today, there is an existing add-on, that is compatible with NCS v2.9.0, and it contains the experimental R23 stack. Later, at some point, there will be added support for nRF52840 as well. The R22 add-on will be kept as well, but only in maintenance mode, meaning no new features will be added to this, but severe bugs will be patched.

Best regards,

Edvin

[Pawel(embeddedsolutions.pl)]

Hello Edvin,

Nice to hear from you.

Thank you. You filled up my curiosity. 

Do you know, at this point if transition from R22 to R23 will be OTA compatible? 

Best regards,

Pawel

[Edvin]

I see no reason why it would not be possible. The bootloader (MCUBOOT) is practically unaware of what application that is running, and the transfer part that is done in Zigbee is not aware of the content of the DFU image that it is receiving.

[Pawel(embeddedsolutions.pl)]

I got your point. 
ZBOSS defines two mandatory partitions for static memory layout zboss_nvram and zboss_product_config. 
If their minimum recommended sizes are going to change in the R23 this might break the OTA compatibility. 
What do you think about it ? 

[Edvin]

You can check the experimental release add-on using:

https://github.com/nrfconnect/ncs-zigbee

(sorry, I thought I included that link in one of the previous replies).

The partitions are the same there as it is in today's R22. However, I can't guarantee that it doesn't change when moving out of experimental. However, it would surprise me if it does, as that would make it impossible (at least a bit more difficult) to DFU from R22 to R23.

Best regards,

Edvin