Bluetooth Low Energy

(Bluetooth LE)

The go-to choice for developers

Trusted by thousands of developers and holding a 40% market share, Nordic’s Bluetooth® Low Energy (often called BLE) solution is the go-to choice, leading to over two million wireless SoC (System-on-Chip) shipments daily into innovative IoT products worldwide.

Why choose Nordic's Bluetooth Low Energy solution?

Strong wireless SoC portfolio: Our extensive selection of ultra-low-power wireless SoC options features scalable memory configurations and feature sets covering a wide range of requirements. This also provides flexibility during development if memory or feature requirements change unexpectedly.

Ultra-low-power MCU functionality and 2.4 GHz radio: Our small ultra-low-power wireless SoC options integrate high-efficiency MCU (Microcontroller Unit) functionality and a high-performance multiprotocol 2.4 GHz radio, along with powerful peripherals, enabling you to build the smallest, most power-efficient IoT products.

Fully-featured certified Bluetooth LE protocol stack: As one of the major contributors to the development of the Bluetooth standard, we ensure our Bluetooth Low Energy stack supports all mandatory and optional features. With full reusable certification, our stack delivers robust Bluetooth LE communication with industry-leading interoperability.

Proven quality, reliability, and interoperability: Backed by thousands of developers and billions of wireless SoC shipments, our solution provides unmatched quality and reliability. Our Bluetooth LE protocol stack delivers verified interoperability with everything from smartphones to tablets and smartwatches, minimizing costly returns and protecting your IoT product’s reputation.

Made for developers: Our easy-to-use solution features powerful software and tools, technical support for all, comprehensive documentation, and hands-on online courses, enabling you to focus on creating features that make your IoT product stand out.

Great hardware deserves great software

Great hardware deserves great software. For the nRF53 and nRF52 Series we offer the nRF Connect SDK, a complete software development kit for developing Bluetooth Low Energy applications. It integrates the scalable Zephyr RTOS, a feature-rich Bluetooth LE protocols stack, a variety of samples, hardware drivers and much more.

We have ported the lower layers of our SoftDevices to the nRF Connect SDK, bringing with us the best-in-class interoperability our SoftDevices are known for. The result is the SoftDevice Controller. The SoftDevice Controller is combined with the Zephyr Bluetooth Host to form a feature-rich Bluetooth LE protocol stack. The stack is compatible with all nRF52 and nRF53 Series SoCs and supports Broadcaster, Peripheral, Observer and Central roles. It is a Bluetooth 5.2 qualified stack supporting 2 Mbps, Advertising Extensions, channel selection algorithm #2 and Long Range. It also supports Privacy 1.2, LE Data Packet Length Extension, configurable ATT MTU, L2CAP connection-oriented channels and LE Secure Connections.

The nRF5 SDK can be still used with the nRF52 Series, but it is in maintenance mode. For all new projects, we recommend the nRF Connect SDK.

Software development kit

nRF Connect SDK

nRF Connect SDK is a common software development kit for Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi, cellular IoT, Bluetooth mesh, Thread, Zigbee and Matter. It supports all our nRF52, nRF53, nRF70 and nRF91 Series wireless devices.

 

nRF Connect SDK hands-on

Video series

Rapid prototyping with nRF Connect SDK

Sensors in nRF Connect SDK

Send and receive data through Bluetooth LE

Storing data on non-volatile memory

Power Optimization and the PPK2

Adding FOTA over Bluetooth LE

To ease onboarding, our Nordic Developer Academy includes three free hands-on online courses for Bluetooth LE product development: nRF Connect SDK Fundamentals, Bluetooth Low Energy Fundamentals, and nRF Connect SDK Intermediate. These courses have enrolled more than 16,000 developers, have received an average rating of 9.1/10, and provide more than 30 hours of in-depth training. Hundreds of nRF Connect SDK-based products have already been brought to market, and we receive positive feedback from adopters.

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