Nordic Semi Category - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

March 17, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Mini review of the ThinkNode M6 “outdoor solar power for Meshtastic”

Elecrow has sent us a solar-powered ThinkNode M6 Meshtastic device for review. Last year, I reviewed the ThinkNode M1 and M2 Meshtastic nodes, and I was a bit disappointed by the point-to-point range in a suburban environment, where I got about 550 meters of range after switching to LONG SLOW mode. Nine months have passed since that review, and there still doesn’t seem to be any Meshtastic community in the second-largest city in Thailand, probably because typical Meshtastic terminals are more expensive than entry-level Android smartphones, have limited functionality, and the mobile app is still a mess despite a revamp. Nevertheless, when Elecrow asked me whether I wanted to test the “ThinkNode M6 outdoor solar power for Meshtastic”, I thought it might be fun. The main purpose of this mini review is to check the range I get using the M6 as a router between the M1 and M2 nodes. […]

March 9, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Nordic Semi unveils nRF54LS05A and nRF54LS05B entry-level, ultra-low-power Bluetooth LE SoCs

Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF54LS05A and nRF54LS05B are entry-level, ultra-low-power Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Arm Cortex-M33 microcontrollers designed to be used as the main wireless SoC in simple applications such as sensors, tags, beacons, remotes, and PC peripherals, or operate as a Bluetooth LE companion device in more advanced products. Both SoCs are clocked at 128 MHz, feature Nordic’s 4th-generation Bluetooth LE radio, analog/digital interfaces, and advanced security. They also come with 0.5 MB of Non-Volatile Memory (NVM), and the only difference is that the nRF54LS05A is equipped with 64 KB of RAM, while the nRF54LS05B offers 96 KB. Nordic Semi nRF54LS05A/B specifications: CPU Arm Cortex-M33 core @ 128 MHz Performance – 250 CoreMark/mA @ 3V, 500 CoreMark Memory nRF54LS05A – 64 KB RAM nRF54LS05B – 96 KB RAM Storage – 508 KB NVM Wireless Bluetooth LE – 1 Mbps, 2 Mbps 2.4 GHz proprietary – GFSK: 4 Mbps, 2 Mbps, 1 […]

February 16, 2026February 16, 2026 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

LR2021 LoRa Plus board combines Semtech LR2021 and Nordic nRF54L15 for high-speed FLRC and LoRa connectivity

Last year, Semtech released the LR2021 LoRa Plus transceiver chip, designed to address the low data-rate issue associated with LoRa, but surprisingly, they didn’t release a development board for the chip. Now, almost a year later, Seeed Studio and Semtech have partnered to introduce the LR2021 LoRa Plus development kit targeting long-range high-speed LoRa and FLRC applications up to 2.6 Mbps. Not only does the board support LoRa Gen 4 technology, providing Sub-GHz, 2.4 GHz ISM, and S/L-band operation, but a XIAO nRF54L15 board also adds dual-core processing (Arm Cortex-M33 + RISC-V) and supports other short-range protocols, including NFC, Bluetooth LE 6.0, Matter, Thread, and 2.4 GHz proprietary protocols. The development board also features a 0.96-inch 128×64 OLED, three Grove connectors for expansion, a USB Type-C for power, SWD debugging, and two Sub-GHz and 2.4 GHz SMA connectors. It is compatible with Arduino Uno, STM32 Nucleo, and Nordic DK boards. […]

February 12, 2026 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

SlimeVR Butterfly Trackers – nRF52833-based, ultra-slim, full-body VR trackers offer up to 48h battery life (Crowdfunding)

Designed by SlimeVR in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the SlimeVR Butterfly Trackers are open-hardware, IMU-based, ultra-slim, full-body VR trackers designed for virtual reality gaming, motion capture, VTubing, and more. The trackers provide full-body positional tracking without base stations, cameras, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth. Each tracker uses an IMU to measure absolute rotation and transmits data over a custom 2.4 GHz ESB protocol via a dedicated dongle supporting up to 10 trackers, eliminating occlusion issues and router setup. Based on Nordic Semi’s nRF52833 wireless MCU, the split “butterfly” design places the PCB and 90 mAh battery side-by-side to achieve a thickness of under 7 mm and a weight below 10 grams, while a flexible interconnect improves comfort when worn under clothing. The system offers a 100–200 Hz refresh rate, <15 ms latency, over 48 hours of battery life with USB-C charging and OTA firmware updates. SlimeVR Butterfly Trackers specifications: Wireless MCU – Nordic nRF52833 CPU […]

January 28, 2026January 28, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Ariel OS – A Rust RTOS for IoT microcontrollers

Ariel OS is a new RTOS for microcontrollers written in Rust with support for popular hardware architectures (Arm Cortex-M, ESP32, RISC-V) and boards from Espressif, Nordic Semi, Raspberry Pi, and STMicroelectronics. Ariel OS is built on top of Embassy Rust framework and embedded-hal Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) for embedded systems, and adds several OS functionalities and a multi-core capable scheduler. It is mainly designed for secure, memory-safe, networked applications on microcontrollers. The developers further describe Ariel OS as follows on the project’s website: Ariel OS follows an approach whereby it simultaneously integrates a curated ecosystem of libraries (available via crates.io), and adds missing operating system functionalities as depicted below. Such functionalities include a preemptive multicore scheduler, portable peripheral APIs, additional network security facilities, as well as a meta-build system to bind it all together. As a result, a low-power IoT developer can focus on business logic sitting on top of […]

January 24, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

FOSDEM 2026 schedule – Embedded, RISC-V, Robotics, Rust, Open Hardware, and more

FOSDEM 2026 will take place on January 31-February 1, with thousands of developers meeting in Brussels to discuss open-source software & hardware projects. The free-to-attend “Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting” gets more traction every year, and in 2026, there will be at least 1,113 speakers, 1,016 events, 70 tracks, and potentially close to 10,000 attendees. As usual, I’ll create a virtual schedule with sessions most relevant to the topics covered on CNX Software from the “Embedded, Mobile and Automotive” and “Open Hardware and CAD/CAM” devrooms, but also other devrooms, including “RISC-V”, “Robotics and simulation”, and “FOSS on Mobile”, among others. I’m aware some of the talks overlap by a couple of minutes or so… FOSDEM 2026 Day 1 – Saturday, January 31 10:40 – 11:15 – RISC-V Vector optimisations in FFmpeg by Rémi Denis-Courmont FFmpeg is the most versatile multimedia codec and format support library, and was […]

January 21, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ESPHome 2026.1.0 optimizes memory usage on ESP32/ESP8266, adds Zigbee support on nRF52, WiFi roaming, and more

ESPHome 2026.1.0 open-source firmware has just been released with new features like automatic WiFi roaming and Zigbee support for Nordic Semi nRF52 targets, as well as memory optimization for ESP32/ESP8266 hardware, among many other changes. Other notable changes include security updates with the project replacing API password authentication with API encryption and requiring SHA256 authentication for OTA updates, better support for non-ASCII configuration, and updates to LibreTiny platforms (BK72xx, RTL87xx, LN882x), which received thread-safe WiFi, atomics, and deep sleep support. ESPHome developers used to advise users not to use ESP8266, not because it was not suitable for the task, but because the runtime heap on ESP8266 routinely dropped below 10k, and devices were unreliable. Since millions of ESP8266 devices were already deployed in homes, they decided to do something about it. The project was greatly helped thanks to increased support from the Open Home Foundation, which allows the project to […]

January 20, 2026January 20, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

WisMesh 1W Booster Starter Kit targets high-power Meshtastic solutions

RAKwireless WisMesh 1W Booster Starter Kit is a high-power Meshtastic solution based on Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 wireless SoC, Semtech SX1262 RF transceiver, and SKY66122 power amplifier for extended mesh range. It’s built from three modules from the WisBLock IoT ecosystem, and besides a power amplifier for longer Tx range and better penetration through walls, it also features an integrated RF filter for enhanced reception performance. It offers an alternative to the LILYGO T-Beam 1W with an ESP32-S3 + Semtech SX1262 LoRa transceiver + PA+LNA design, which we covered just last week. WisMesh 1W Booster Starter Kit specifications and technical details WisMesh1W Booster Starter Kit content and specifications: WisBlock RAK3401 Core module SoC – Nordic nRF52840 CPU core – Arm Cortex-M4F @ Memory – 348KB SRAM Storage – 1MB Flash I/O ports – UART/I2C/SPI/ADC/GPIO WisBlock RAK13302 1W LoRa transceiver module Semtech SX1262 LoRa transceiver SKY66122 signal booster Integrated RF filter for […]