How to make nRF52820 work with Thread or Zigbee

[Ugnius B]

Hello,

I am trying to find more information regarding the nRF52 family Thread/Zigbee support.

It is mentioned on the nRF52820 product page, that this device supports Thread and Zigbee.
I did some research on the SDK side. It states that SDK supports only nRF52833 and nRF52840. The code examples do not have anything prepared for nRF52820 too.

The information provided above is a little bit misleading.
So how is it actually? Do nRF52820 support Thread/Zigbee? Is there any other SDK that supports nRF52820 or is it still in progress?

Thank you for your answers.

[Marte Myrvold]

Hi,

The nRF52820 is supported out of the box in nRF Connect SDK. The nRF5 SDK does not have out of the box support, but you can transfer nRF52833 DK projects to nRF52820. See Developing for nRF52820 nRF5 SDK for more information.

We strongly recommend that you use nRF Connect SDK for new projects, as nRF5 SDK is only in maintenance mode, see  nRF Connect SDK and nRF5 SDK statement.

However, even though the radio on the nRF52820 supports Thread and Zigbee, you will get problems with memory constraints. In nRF Connect SDK you will not be able to get any of the Zigbee or Thread examples to fit on the nRF52820. In nRF5 SDK you might get the simplest end device examples to fit, see nRF5 SDK Zigbee memory layout and requirements and OpenThread memory layout and requirements.

Best regards,

Marte