Developing Bluetooth Low Energy products with nRF5 SDK and SoftDevices

For the nRF52 Series developing Bluetooth LE products with the nRF5 SDK and SoftDevices is still a valid option, especially if you are familiar with it and don't require an RTOS or features added after Bluetooth 5.0. If not, please consider using the nRF Connect SDK.

The nRF5 SDK is very mature and is used on millions of Bluetooth LE products to date. It is qualified to Bluetooth 5.1 and supports all of the Bluetooth LE features up to and including Bluetooth 5. Read below for more information. It supports all nRF51 and nRF52 Series SoCs.

We understand that a rich selection of well-tested, reliable software forms an integral part of designing your wireless product. Our unrivalled selection of SDK examples, robust and predictable communication stacks and development software will help you achieve success in line with your project’s goals.

All software we distribute for your application is developed by Nordic and tested in-house. Any open-source code that we re-distribute comes from projects we contribute to and ensures the quality of the solution on Nordic devices. This means we always have control of the features we offer and the testing procedures that deliver quality.

We offer two types of software for developing your Bluetooth LE product:

• Protocol stacks: We call them SoftDevices
• Software development kits: nRF5 SDK

The software development kits for nRF52 and nRF51 Series and the range of SoftDevices are designed to work together seamlessly, offering you as a developer an easy-to-use solution for building wireless applications.

The Nordic software architecture is unique. It is designed to make developing Bluetooth applications as simple and intuitive as possible, whilst also maintaining consistent and reliable performance at all levels.

There is a fundamental split in how the software architecture is made up, this is between the protocol stack and associated radio management functions, and the application itself.

This means less complicated application code and more reliable operation as you run through develop and compile iterations.

Your application which will usually incorporate elements of our nRF5 SDK interfaces to the protocol stack, known as a SoftDevice, via an API.

The SoftDevice is is event-driven and has no runtime dependencies.