Nordic Thingy:53 is a dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 platform for IoT prototyping

As one should have expected after Nordic Thingy:52 and Thingy:91 IoT devkits were introduced in 2017 and 2019 respectively, the Norwegian company has now launched the Thingy:53 platform based on Nordic Semi nRF5340 dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 SoC for IoT prototyping with Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread, Matter, Zigbee, IEEE 802.15.4, NFC, and Bluetooth mesh RF protocols.

The development kit also incorporates the nPM1100 PMIC and nRF21540 Front End Module (FEM), a power amplifier/low noise amplifier (PA/LNA) range extender, as well as multiple motion and environmental sensors, as well as a rechargeable 1350 mAh Li-Po battery for power.

Nordic Thingy:53 specifications:

• SoC – Nordic Semi nRF5340 SoC with 128 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 Application core with 1 MB Flash + 512 KB RAM, and a 64 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 Network core with 256 KB Flash + 64 KB RAM
• Wireless connectivity
  • RF front-end nRF21540 FEM
  • Protocols – Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth Mesh, NFC, Thread/Zigbee, and 2.4 GHz proprietary
• Sensors
  • 6-axis IMU with accelerometer and gyroscope
  • Environmental sensor for temperature, humidity, air quality, and air pressure measurements
  • Color and light sensor
  • Microphone PDM, wake-on-sound capable
• USB – 1x USB Type-C port
• Expansion  – 4-pin JST Qwiik/Stemma and Groove compatible connectors
• Misc – RGB LED , buttons, 4kHz buzzer
• Power Management
  • nPM1100 PMIC
  • 1350 mAh Li-Po Battery

You’ll find the documentation to get started, build the firmware for the network and application cores, and more, on the developer website. Nordic Semi notably collaborated with Edge Impulse for machine learning examples with Thingy:53 shipping with Edge Impulse firmware sending data to the nRF Edge Impulse mobile app which is then forwarded to Edge Impulse Studio cloud-based development platform where it is used to build and test an embedded ML model. You may check out our Edge Impulse review with XIAO BLE Sense board (nRF52840-based) to see what’s possible and how to get started with Edge Impulse.

Nordic Semi Thingy:53 is available now for $45 to $60+ from various distributors including Digi-Key, Farnell, Element14, and Mouser. Additional information may be found on the product page, as well as an upcoming webinar taking place on July 6th at 9AM CEST and 6PM CEST.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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