OpenThread/Zephyr development recommendation

[Allen]

Hello,

I would like to develop OpenThread applications that run under ZephyrRTOS for the nRF52840 processor. It appears that there are 3 possible development approaches:

1. Follow the development process from Open Thread
2. Follow the Zephyr development process
3. Follow Nordic, NRF Connect SDK development process

The unified, NRF Connect SDK is the most attractive but it appears OpenThread support is not complete. The OpenThread examples work but customization of peripheral support is unclear. Zephyr and NRF Connect are very similar.

Is it correct that this approach would not require the soft device?

TIA

[Edvin]

Hello,

I would say that the easiest way to get started is probably to look into the nRF Connect SDK using NCS for Visual Studio Code. 

That would probably correspond to your "approach 3". Since NCS (nRF Connect SDK) is based on Zephyr, it should be quite easy to switch to Zephyr at any point in time, if you should decide to do so. 

I have not looked into "OpenThread's development process". Can you please point me to what you mean by it? Do you have any links?

It is correct that you don't need a softdevice. The Softdevice is the bluetooth controller. In the legacy SDKs (before NCS) we used the Softdevice in BLE applications, while openthread had it's own libraries (which were lib files, but open source, unlike the softdevice which is not open source). There is still a closed source BLE stack in NCS, but it will be merged automatically into the .hex file when you build an NCS project if it is needed. 

but it appears OpenThread support is not complete. The OpenThread examples work but customization of peripheral support is unclear.

Can you please specify? It may be correct, and I have been working on something else for the last six months, but perhaps I can check it out if you give me some pointers to where you got this assumption.

Best regards,

Edvin