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

nRF Connect SDK

Great hardware deserves great software. For the nRF54L, 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. By reusing and leveraging these components, developers can focus on creating valuable and differentiating application features that make their IoT products stand out. It offers bare-metal-like performance and memory usage for simple applications and a wide range of features and services that abstract complexity for more sophisticated applications. This results in faster time-to-market and reduced maintenance costs, allowing developers to deliver more value with less effort. Hundreds of nRF Connect SDK-based products have already been brought to market, and we receive positive feedback from adopters.

graphical user interface, application 

We have ported the lower layers of our SoftDevices to the nRF Connect SDK, bringing with us the best-in-class interoperability, performance and robustness that 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 nRF54L, nRF53 and nRF52 Series SoCs and supports Broadcaster, Peripheral, Observer and Central roles. It is a Bluetooth 6.0 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. A detailed breakdown of the supported features across all devices can found in our technical documentation.

Great software is elevated by great training

Nordic Developer Academy

To ease onboarding, and accelerate your learning curve with nRF Connect SDK, 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.

Learning Paths PPT Artboard 3.png

We also offer a developer-oriented, hands-on tutorial video series, which will help you get started quickly with application development in nRF Connect SDK. This video series is based on selected lessons from Developer Academy with the key topics. You will learn how to build a simple Bluetooth Low Energy application step by step, starting with adding both simulated and real sensors and retrieving their data wirelessly through Bluetooth LE. We will then dive into topics such as storing data permanently on non-volatile memory, power optimization, PPK2, and finally, how to add FOTA (DFU) over Bluetooth LE (BLE).

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