Why to go with Zephyr RTOS in nRF5340?

[smohan]

Summary: What are advantage bullet factors of Zephyr RTOS over FreeRTOS to choose this in nRF Connect SDK v1.5.0

Details:
We have Implemented our previous project using Nordic's nRF52832 SoC with FreeRTOS.
Now we are developing a new BLE Mesh based project with nRF5340 and it requires a RTOS.
Based on analysis
For nRF5340 based development we need to use nRF Connect SDK v1.5.0 which is merged with Zephyr RTOS
BLE based samples are all Zephyr RTOS based.
We would like to progress like below
1. Simple interface check without RTOS
2. BLE Mesh check without RTOS
3. Finally upgrade the BLE mesh with RTOS.
But the nRF Connect SDK v1.5.0 based development looks like not supporting without Zephyr RTOS.

Shall we get the below clarification:
1.Is any possibility to start the "BLE Mesh + nRF Connect SDK v1.5.0" based project without Zephyr RTOS?
2.What are the advantage bullet factors of Zephyr RTOS over FreeRTOS to choose this in nRF Connect SDK v1.5.0? .

Conclusion:
Please list the advantage bullet factors of Zephyr RTOS over FreeRTOS?

Awaiting for your response.

Regards,

S Mohan

[awneil]

smohan said:

nRF Connect SDK v1.5.0 based development looks like not supporting without Zephyr RTOS

Yes - AIUI, Zephyr is an integral part of the nRF-Connect SDK.

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../268594

[smohan]

Oh okay @awneil . From the link you mentioned  Didrik Rokhaug quoted that it was not feature ready for production. What stage is it now? Are there any example implementation for DFU bootloader and mesh model like as in nRF52, as a starting point?

[awneil]

Maybe join this webinar this afternoon: https://webinars.nordicsemi.com/understand-the-nrf-connect-sdk/join

There seem to be a few nRF Connect webinars coming up:

https://webinars.nordicsemi.com/webinars

[Bruno Saraiva]

Mohan, did you proceed any further with your considerations?

The more we progress here in our current development, the less I see Zephyr as of any advantage at all. Yes, it is too big to fail, and eventually it will work - if your project can wait a couple of years.

The mandatory Zephyr has caused us at least 6 months delay so far, and very basic functionalities are still not working in Zephyr. Our project is one year old and there are bugs we can't seem to solve unless we decide to learn the realms of Zephyr and change low level issues ourselves - after which we will have a hard time to use main Zephyr updates...

We are seriously considering to propose to our customer another 6 months delay on the project, and come up with our 'bare bone' solutions for nRF5340 with FreeRTOS or something similiar... Or maybe we should go as far as redesigning the HW to use a silicon that does not force Zephyr into their developers...

[smohan]

Hi Bruno,

Yes, we decided to start our development with Zephyr RTOS, and yeah ,as you have mentioned , it really takes more development time. The device tree seems a bit complicated to understand.

But as Nordic has mandated NCS with Zephyr for nRF5340, we started to use it.

B R /Mohan