nRFConnect direct through serial

[Bill Saltzstein]

I'd like to use nRFConnect with a direct USB/Serial connection to my nRF52832-based device. I've read that it currently checks the jLink chip.

Is there any way to configure it so that it will operate simply with a pass-through? Seems it should just be using the serialization firmware to the extra jLink device shouldn't be absolutely required... Nordic -- could this be done in a beta/update?

It would be really good to be able to use this for testing/characterization purposes.

Thanks! Bill

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi Bill,

It would need some modifications to both nRF Connect and pc-ble-driver-js, which nRF Connect is built upon, to support direct serial connection to the device.

nRF Connect is intended as a development tool, to be used together with our Development Kits. All our development kits have a Segger J-Link OB chip, and this is why the tool integrates the use of its features. Both nRF Connect and pc-ble-driver-js is available in source code on our GitHub, and you are welcome to make the changes needed for it to suit your application (please refer conditions given in license file).

nrfconnect/pc-ble-driver-js use nrfjprog and the J-Link driver to verify the firmware on the chip, and flash the correct one if wrong/no firmware is detected. The check could be done over UART, but there is no command in the connectivity firmware to check this. You could add a custom command to the firmware yourself if you want to test this. The connectivity firmware is a modified version of the serialization firmware found in the SDK.

The files firmwareActions.js in nrfconnect and firmwareUpdater.js in pc-ble-driver-js should be a great starting point if you want to remove the dependency on nrfjprog/the Segger chip. Note that the UART communication in nRF Connect assumes the UART communication works as J-Link CDC, and you might encounter unanticipated issues if using it with other UART implementations.

I would recommend that you start with getting pc-nrfjprog-js to run without nrfjprog, before integrating this with nrfconnect. Note that these changes will remove the possibility to flash the connectivity firmware to the chip, and this will have to be done manually using external programmer.

Hope this information is usefull!

Best regards,

Jørgen

[Bill Saltzstein]

Thanks Jorgen!