OTA DFU from OSX/Windows/Linux

RE: OTA DFU from OSX/Windows/Linux

JuP0 — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:13:11 GMT

For anyone finding this thread from a search: this is doable today, and it
doesn't need a second DK.

We built a small CLI in Go for exactly that use case:
github.com/.../ed-nrfdfu

It runs Nordic Secure DFU over BLE from the terminal using the host's own
Bluetooth adapter — no connectivity dongle. The BLE layer goes through
tinygo.org/x/bluetooth, which maps onto BlueZ on Linux, CoreBluetooth on
macOS and WinRT on Windows, so the DFU protocol code above it is the same
on all three.

Being upfront about the state of it: it's a proof of concept that we run
daily on Linux/BlueZ. The macOS and Windows backends are implemented and
build, but we haven't validated them against real hardware yet — so treat
those two as untested rather than as working.

One platform difference worth knowing if you go this route: CoreBluetooth
does not expose peripheral MAC addresses, it hands you a system-generated
UUID instead. So on macOS you would target the device by advertised name
rather than by MAC. WinRT does expose the address, so MAC targeting should
work on Windows — untested, same caveat.

go install github.com/E-DEVICE/ed-nrfdfu@latest

ed-nrfdfu --mac "AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF" --dfuPath firmware.zip
ed-nrfdfu --bleName "MyDevice_DFU" --dfuPath firmware.zip

It expects the device to already be advertising in DFU/bootloader mode; it
does not trigger the buttonless transition from application firmware.

Apache 2.0. Feedback — and macOS/Windows test reports — very welcome.

RE: OTA DFU from OSX/Windows/Linux

Andreas48752 — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 15:18:00 GMT

Hi! I just stumbled over this thread.

Currently I am looking for a DFU OTA from .NET. So maybe there's an update on this? Has anyone a code example implementing DFU protocol or any other tips?

Thanks!

RE: OTA DFU from OSX/Windows/Linux

WirelessCharging — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 08:33:07 GMT

Has anyone gotten this to work? I'm targeting the task of implementing DFU OTA from PC desktop app. Would be much appreciated if anyone has a working code project for this.

RE: OTA DFU from OSX/Windows/Linux

shibshab — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 13:13:48 GMT

I mean that the protocol is open, so given a generic BLE device, you can implement it anywhere. Re-using the nrfutil library would be one way of doing this, then you could write a transport layer (which is a defined interface in nrfutil as far as I can remember) for the DFU protocol using whatever platform you want to support.

RE: OTA DFU from OSX/Windows/Linux

chaitz — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 12:45:39 GMT

Thanks @shibshab for your response. Do you mean using the nrfutil library to implement the DFU protocol?

RE: OTA DFU from OSX/Windows/Linux

shibshab — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 12:41:50 GMT

No, there are no tools currently available to DFU this without the use of a DK on any PC platform (windows, mac, linux).

However, it is possible to implement the Nordic Secure DFU protocol on any of these platforms.