nRF52 DKDevelopment kit

Bluetooth Low Energy and Bluetooth mesh development kit for the nRF52810 and nRF52832 SoCs

The nRF52 DK is a versatile single board development kit for Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth mesh, NFC, ANT and 2.4 GHz proprietary development on the nRF52805, nRF52810 and nRF52832 SoCs.

It facilitates development exploiting all features of the nRF52805, nRF52810 and nRF52832 SoCs. It includes an NFC antenna that quickly enables utilization of the NFC-A tag peripheral on the nRF52832. All GPIOs are available via edge connectors and headers, and 4 buttons and 4 LEDs simplify output and input from and to the SoC.

It is Arduino Uno Revision 3 compatible, making it possible to mount 3rd-party shields with ease. It comes with an on-board SEGGER J-Link debugger allowing programming and debugging both the on-board SoC and external SoCs through the debug out header. It also interfaces directly with the Power Profiler Kit and the Power Profiler Kit II.

It can be powered by USB, but also includes a CR2032 battery holder, enabling in-field testing of prototypes.

SEGGER Embedded Studio, Keil, GCC and IAR IDEs and toolchains are supported, see IDEs and Toolchains for more information.

The box includes an nRF52 DK board, an NFC antenna and a CR2032 battery. Hardware layout and schematics are available.

Download PDFDownload nRF52 DK product brief [PDF]
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Key features
Supports Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth mesh, ANT and NFC

User-programmable LEDs(4) and buttons(4)

2.4 GHz and NFC antennas

SWF RF connector for direct RF measurements

On-board SEGGER J-Link debugger/programmer

Arduino Uno Rev3 form factor

Pins for measuring power consumption

1.7-3.6 V supply from USB, external or CR2032 coin cell battery
Documentation
Downloads
CE Certification

Get started

With the nRF52 DK

Congratulations on getting your nRF52 DK!
On this page we'll show you how to connect and power up your nRF52 DK, and what to expect when you do so.

This will take about 20 minutes.

Before you start:

  1. You need a reasonably current Windows PC to perform the following.
  2. Your nRF52 DK must be running firmware v1.1.0 or later.
    DKs with hardware revision 1.1.0 or later, are shipped with this firmware.
    If step 5 below fails:
    1. Click here to download firmware version 1.1.0 or later, and
    2. continue from step 7 to program the new firmware into your nRF52 DK.

Enjoy your development kit!

Connect and test

your nRF52 DK

  2. What's included with the kit: The nRF52 DK board itself, and a flex NFC antenna (Pic.1).
  3. Connect the NFC antenna to the board. The connector is marked "NFC", and located on the edge of the board near the 4 buttons (Pic.2). Use a micro USB 2.0 cable to connect the nRF52DK to one of your PC's USB host ports. This provides power to the board.
  4. Flip the power switch to "on". Find it near the micro USB connector (Pic.3).
  5. Confirm that the USB active LED has started to pulsate (Pic.4)
  6. Use buttons 1-4 to control which LED is pulsating (Pic.5)
  7. Open a Windows file explorer. Confirm that the nRF52 DK has appeared as a removable drive named "JLINK" (Pic.6). This allows you to program the onboard chip. You'll do this under "how to program the optional demos into your nRF52 DK" below. Take out your smart phone and enable NFC, if available. If you don't know how to do this, consult the phone manual or Google " NFC enable".
  8. Once NFC is enabled, hold your phone close to the nRF52 DK (Pic.7). Your phone will prompt you to open a URL. Please allow this. Your smart phone browser will then open this web page!

Optional demos

Download them from the 'Downloads' tab

Both the optional demos below interact with the nRF Toolbox mobile app. Once nRF Toolbox is installed on your phone, download the optional demo programs below to interact with the nRF52 DK from your smart phone.
 
  • Heart rate monitor - fake EKG values are broadcasted by the nRF52 DK. The nRF Toolbox app displays the curve.
  • Proximity demo - activate LEDs on the nRF52 DK using the nRF Toolbox mobile app.
Get the mobile App for more demo fun
Now it's time to download and install the nRF Toolbox mobile app-available for Android, iOS and Windows Phone. This app is required for the downloadable optional demos.
 
Click on the link to download the desired platform for the nRF Toolbox app!

Program optional demos

(Make sure you have installed the nRF Toolbox mobile app before you start. See above right).
 
  1. Download demo zip files by clicking on the links above.
  2. Unzip and find a hex file and a readme document inside. The document describes how the demo works.
  1. Drag and drop the hex file into the JLINK removable drive mentioned above. The file contains firmware which will be automatically programmed onto the nRF52832 SoC. This happens immediately. The explorer window may close when programming starts. When programming is completed, the unit will be re-detected by Windows.
  2. Follow the instructions in the "readme" document that came with the demo.

Getting started guide

In addition to the user guide for this devkit, you will also find good help to get started in the guide "nRF5 Getting Started", which encompasses several Nordic tools. Check it out!

Video Tutorials

View and learn

See all tutorials

Bluetooth 5 @ 2Mbps

Nordic Thingy:52

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