RE: nRF5 SDK VS nRF Connect SDK

dejans — Thu, 12 May 2022 09:08:35 GMT

Hi,

Regarding the efficiency and optimization, the short answer is that it depends. It could be expected for very small programs that programs using nRF5 SDK performs a bit better than those using NCS. However, there should be no major difference for larger projects. The abstraction layers in NCS do not have significant impact on the performance. In addition, you could expect some benefits in terms of readability, maintainability and expandability.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: nRF5 SDK VS nRF Connect SDK

dejans — Fri, 06 May 2022 14:33:04 GMT

Hi,

[quote user=""]Why should I really focus on learning the nRF Connect SDK if at the moment I will only need to use BLE and the nRF5 SDK is much more similar to the HAL paradigm I know from the STM and Microchip ecosystem?[/quote]

nRF Connect SDK (SDK) is a way forward and I am confident that you are going to have a smooth transition to and progress in the NCS world. The way how things are done in NCS might be somewhat different than what you have experienced before, a bit challenging, but exciting. In addition, there will be a good support for all your NCS problems.

[quote user=""]For a person who has never used CMake, what steps should I take to start learning the nRF Connect SDK?[/quote]

Congratulations on finishing the nRF Connect SDK Fundamentals course from our Academy. Regardless of the CMake level knowledge, there are multiple, guides, videos, blogs and plenty of documentation. You can take a look at technical and support and starting with NCS documentation, about various topics that may be of interest to you. You can get more information about CMake in the CMake reference documentation. Related to CMake, there is information on modifying application and Zephyr build system (CMake). We also have the blog about NCS and nRF5 SDK statement.

[quote user=""]Due to the amount of abstraction layers of the nRF Connect SDK due to the Zephyr Build System, how optimized is the generated programming file afterwards in terms of program memory and power energy efficiency? If I want to make a product that really needs to be very power efficient (lets say power a device from a 100mah lipo battery and that it lasts a long time while using BLE communication, etc) how do I know that the generated code is the most efficient if we are programming with a huge level of abstraction? Has anyone done this comparation? Like compare the same code/application developed with nRF5 SDK and nRF Connect SDK and analyze the differences about program memory and energy efficiency? Are there any articles/benchmarks that look into this details?[/quote]

In order to get more complete answer, I have asked internally for comments about the optimization, program memory and energy efficiency. I am expecting to get an answer during next week.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: nRF5 SDK VS nRF Connect SDK

qwertynoon — Thu, 05 May 2022 20:54:27 GMT

My experience has shown that after AVR, I started researching nrf52 through the nRF5 SDK and regretted it very much. Zephyr is a really cool thing!!! OTA is performed many times better than in the SDK. Therefore, the NRF Connect SDK is the right choice. There is simply not much to explain. Don't make my mistake. ZEPHYR!!!