I am leaning towards sticking with SoftDevice 6.0.0 -- any reason not to?

[riceman0]

So, we are pretty far along in development (I have inherited the project) with an nrf51822, SDK 4.4.2 and SoftDevice "6.0.0-alpha". We are nearing release, and I was told that we can upgrade to any 6.x.x SoftDevice without breaking compatibility. So I downloaded SoftDevice 6.2.1 and the release notes say it requires SDK 5.2.0 to be installed. I downloaded SDK 5.2.0... and I don't see an "installer" but it does seem like this is an impactful change. I'm daunted.

So, instead I found a SoftDevice 6.0.0 (without the alpha tag) and I'm thinking about just going forward with that and keeping SDK 4.4.2. Is there any compelling reason not to?

Thanks.

[MartinBL]

Hi,

First, what IC revision do you have? Based on the SDK and SD versions you mention my guess is rev 2? Although I'm a little puzzled by this as you also say you are nearing release and rev 3 should be the only revision being shipped by now.

Second, have a look at the Compatibility Matrix. This is where you will find info on IC revision markings and what SDK and SD to use with your particular IC revision. We highly recommend using the SDK and SD combination described in the compatibility matrix. Other combinations might work for your particular application, but are not tested by us and hence we won't make any guarantees.

Here is an .msi installer for SDK 5.2.0. In the install folder you should be able to find the release notes. BTW, you will find all production ready SDK versions (since 4.4.2) on this site.

Looking at the compatibility matrix again you will see that SD 6.0.0 is not compatible with SDK 4.4.2 and hence not a recommended combination.

This is a different thread discussing the issue of migrating between SDKs and SDs.