nRF Connect SDK vs (vanilla) Zephyr

[TSonono]

Hi,

I am curious as to whether one should use the nRF Connect SDK or "vanilla" Zephyr when developing let's say a BLE application that uses multiple peripherals on the SoC on the nRF5340? Are there any advantages to using the nRF Connect SDK? I can't seem to find a good answer to this question without having to dive into the documentation for both Zephyr and nRF Connect SDK.

Best regards,

Tofik

[Hakon]

Hello,

 

I am curious as to whether one should use the nRF Connect SDK or "vanilla" Zephyr when developing let's say a BLE application that uses multiple peripherals on the SoC on the nRF5340?

 I am not sure if there are any practical reasons for choosing Nordic's BLE controller over Zephyr's. I "dived" a little bit into the documentation and it seems that you can use both;

"The nRF Connect SDK contains two implementations of a Bluetooth LE Controller:

• SoftDevice Controller

• Zephyr Bluetooth LE Controller

The SoftDevice Controller is implemented by Nordic Semiconductor. The Zephyr Bluetooth LE Controller is an open source Link Layer developed in Zephyr, to which Nordic Semiconductor is a contributor.

Both Link Layers integrate with the Zephyr Bluetooth Host, which completes the full Bluetooth LE protocol stack solution in the nRF Connect SDK. It is possible to select either Bluetooth LE Controller for application development. See Usage in samples for more information."

[TSonono]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I am not necessarily referring to the BLE controller itself. I was thinking more in general. What justifies the usage of the nRF Connect SDK instead of using (vanilla) Zephyr when developing a BLE application on the nRF5340. Is there any such justification or is it just if you prefer to use Nordic's SoftDevice controller instead of the Zephyr's BLE stack?

Best regards,

Tofik

[Hakon]

The Nordic SoftDevice controller is more optimized and robust than the Zephyr controller. In general, NCS has a lot of functionality that Zephyr does not, like various bluetooth libraries, FOTA upgrades, the CryptoCell library etc.

[TSonono]

Thanks!