Ending support for old nRF SDK format? nRFConnect SDK / Zephyr only moving forward even for simple bare metal like applications?

[droberson]

Hello,

I was going to email my local FAE about this, but figured I would post it here for anyone else who may have the same/similar question. To preface, I have reviewed the following:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/80162/nrf-connect-sdk-zephyr-vs-standalone-nrf5-sdk

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/nordic-blog/b/blog/posts/nrf-connect-sdk-and-nrf5-sdk-statement

Based on the literature above, it looks like Nordic is requiring the use of Zephyr for anything beyond the current feature set in BLE 5 LE. It baffles me that even for something simple such as blinking a LED, reading some sensor, and sending this sensor data over BLE would require a RTOS (Zephyr). 

Question: For such a simple application example as described above, is the expectation moving forward for new designs to use nRF Connect SDK (Zephyr)? This seems like overkill.

Thanks,

Derek

[Kenneth]

Hopefully when you start working with zephyr you will see that even though there is an RTOS present, it does not increase complexity (hopefully the opposite). In terms of size due to the RTOS you may find these memory footprints:

https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/zephyr/samples/basic/minimal/README.html?highlight=building%20measuring%20rom%20size# 

[droberson]

Hey Kenneth,

I'll take your answer as a vague and indirect "yes". Let me know if this is not the case.

Thanks,

Derek