nRF Connect SDK Essential

nRF Connect SDK is a unified and flexible software development kit for building products based on all of Nordic’s nRF54, nRF53, nRF52, nRF70 and nRF91 Series wireless devices. It offers a framework for developing low-power and secure IoT devices that can scale from simple implementations for constrained devices and use cases, to the most feature-rich and sophisticated applications.

It is based on the open source Zephyr project combined with Nordic proprietary software, offered as a single package optimized for Nordic’s portfolio of wireless products. This powerful and comprehensive blend provides developers with a breadth and depth of functionality available out of the box: samples, wireless stacks, networking protocols, drivers, security, and much more. This ensures that developers can focus their time and energy where it matters most, in adding value and differentiation to their application.

The nRF Connect SDK can be extended via Add-ons that provide additional components contributed by both Nordic as well as partners. Add-ons can provide a variety of functionality, from applications, samples, protocols or more complete SDKs for specific technologies and use cases.

In parallel with Zephyr-RTOS based application development, there is the additional nRF Connect SDK Bare Metal option for developing simple Bluetooth LE applications on the nRF54L Series, that do not benefit from an RTOS or advanced features. This offers developers additional flexibility to choose the software development approach that better fits their use case.

The nRF Connect SDK is supported by Nordic’s extensive and industry-leading suite of development tools, including nRF Connect for Desktop, nRF Connect for Mobile, and nRF Connect for VSCode that offers a full-fledged IDE environment to develop your next breakthrough IoT application on Nordic hardware and software.

To onboard developers on nRF Connect SDK as quickly as possible and accelerate their learning curve, Nordic offers online interactive courses through the Nordic Developer Academy, covering a variety of topics and including hands-on exercises.