Hi,
We have developed a BLE module using Zephyr as RTOS on Espressif ESP32C3. Now we're looking to port the same application to the Nordic nRF52810. We have chosen nRF52810 due to the cost factor.
TL;DR - Is it possible to port our application that has Zephyr + BLE Server (30 chars) + BLE Client (30 chars) + MCUboot, to nRF52810 which has only 192kB of flash available?
Project Information:
Basically, the BLE module is supposed to act as a UART bridge for communicating with a family of connected products, via a smartphone app. However, since we also want the devices to be able to communicate with each other, the modules have both a BLE Server and a BLE Client so that they can connect to each other.
For background information, our application has the following parts:
- Device interface (UART-based, runs MIN protocol, a key-value based protocol)
- BLE Server with multiple services, each with multiple characteristics (total 30 characteristics)
- BLE Client that can subscribe to an identical set of services with the same characteristics
- Firmware Upgrade module
Besides this, the BLE module also has MCUboot. The abundant flash size on ESP32C3 makes it possible for a dual-bank update approach, however with nRF52810 we know that we will need an external flash that acts as secondary bank.
Firmware Sizes:
To get an idea of compiled size, we compiled the firmware for nRF52840, because compilation fails for nRF52810 due to memory overflow.
- For nRF52840 its 240kB (nRF52810 has 192kB of flash)
- For ESP32C3 its 400kB (it has 4MB of flash)
Question:
We know that it's hard to answer this without having more details of the project. But nevertheless: would it be at all possible to port the project for nRF52810, given the flash size limitation? Are there any optimizations we can try? Are there any recommendations from anyone who has experience with nRF52810 that runs a Zephyr-based application with a BLE Server & Client and a comparable amount of BLE characteristics?
