nRF54L Arduino Core is an open-source project designed to bring Arduino support for Nordic Semiconductor nRF54L wireless SoCs, starting with Seeed Studio’s XIAO nRF54L15 (Sense) and XIAO nRF54LM20A (Sense) boards, as well as compatible Holyiot nRF54L15 modules.
Since the launch of the nRF52840-based Arduino Nano 33 BLE board in 2019, Nordic nRF52 wireless microcontrollers have been officially supported by the Arduino IDE. However, it’s not quite the case for the newer nRF54L Cortex-M33 microcontrollers. Lolren has decided to change that with the unofficial nRF54 Arduino core project.
nRF54L Arduino Core highlights:
- Dual-core access – Use the 128 MHz Cortex-M33 application CPU and the VPR RISC-V coprocessor without adopting a vendor RTOS
- Wireless
- Bluetooth LE support – Peripheral, central, dual-role, GATT server/client, HID, BLE UART, PHY/DLE/MTU control, LE Secure Connections, bonding, OOB, Numeric Comparison, privacy/RPA, and CSRK signed writes
- Experimental support for
- Zigbee – Partial stack and device demonstrations; incomplete Zigbee PRO coverage, routing, clusters, OTA, and ecosystem interoperability
- Thread – Staged OpenThread FTD/MeshCoP/SRP/UDP with settings recovery, commissioner/joiner, sleepy-child, and mixed-board test paths
- Matter – Staged system, crypto, packet-buffer, IPv6/UDP, ACL, onboarding, and custom PASE/CASE demo work; not an upstream wire-compatible or certifiable Matter device stack
- BLE Channel Sounding – Experimental two-board controller-backed LE CS Test; not connected-ACL Channel Sounding, calibrated ranging, cross-vendor interoperability, or a qualification claim
- Direct peripheral access – GPIO, ADC, PWM, serial buses, audio, NFC, DPPI, GRTC, watchdog, comparators, and power controls are implemented against nRF54L hardware
- Low-power integration – System ON idle, timed System OFF, reset-cause APIs, XIAO RF-switch control, LM20A external-flash power-down, and nPM1300 hibernate support
- Hardware Support
- Seeed Studio XIAO XIAO nRF54L15, XIAO nRF54L15 Sense, XIAO nRF54LM20A, and XIAO nRF54LM20A Sense
- HOLYIOT-25007 (square) and HOLYIOT-25008 (round) modules based on nRF54L15
- Generic nRF54L15 36-pad module
- Nordic nRF54L15 DK
To get started, simply go to Preferences → Additional Boards Manager URLs in the Arduino IDE and add the following URL:
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https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lolren/nrf54-arduino-core/main/package_nrf54l15clean_index.json |
Then install the nRF5415L Boards by “nRF54L15 Clean Arduino”, select a board like the XIAO nRF54L15 / Sense, and load one of the relevant code samples like CleanBringUp below.
Code samples from Bluefruit52Lib, nRFL15-Clean-Implementation, and nRF54 Board Example are recommended. However, Thread and Zigbee samples may not work as expected since the code is still experimental, and this Arduino Core is currently better for BLE applications.
It will be mostly useful to people unfamiliar with the Zephyr-based nRF Connect SDK, and who may prefer Arduino programming. There will be downsides to using the Arduino, such as the aforementioned missing/experimental features and potentially higher power consumption for battery-operated devices.
You’ll find the source code and instructions on GitHub released under an MIT license. The project was made with the help of Anthropic Claude.
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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