Nordic Adds Bare Metal Option to nRF Connect SDK for Simpler Bluetooth LE Development

Nordic Semiconductor has introduced a Bare Metal development path for its nRF Connect SDK, giving engineers a lighter-weight alternative to full Zephyr RTOS development on the new nRF54L Series wireless SoCs. The option is aimed at Bluetooth LE applications that do not need the complexity of a real-time operating system, easing the transition from the popular nRF52 family and legacy nRF5 SDK.

Why Bare Metal Matters

For years, Nordic’s nRF5 SDK and SoftDevice architecture gave developers a straightforward way to build low-power Bluetooth peripherals. The move to the nRF54L Series brought significant performance gains but also a shift toward Zephyr RTOS, which adds features but also overhead. Not every application benefits from RTOS scheduling and resource management. Devices such as wearables, connected health monitors, and simple sensors often just need efficient Bluetooth connectivity without the weight of an OS.

The Bare Metal option answers this by keeping the familiar SoftDevice approach while running independently of Zephyr. Developers gain an easier migration path from nRF52 to nRF54L, with APIs that look and feel like the older SDK. At the same time, projects can later be scaled up into Zephyr-based designs without changing the toolchain.

Features at Launch

At introduction, Bare Metal development supports the S115 SoftDevice for Bluetooth peripheral-only use cases. Nordic plans to expand this with central and multi-role capabilities later in the year, opening the door to more advanced topologies. Firmware updates are supported through a single-bank DFU mechanism that saves non-volatile memory and leaves more space for application code, a significant advantage in cost-sensitive designs.

Flexible Development Environment

Bare Metal projects live inside the same nRF Connect SDK and Visual Studio Code environment used for Zephyr-based development. This unified approach means developers can choose the model that best fits their product without switching tools. Importantly, the Bare Metal components are RTOS-agnostic, so teams that rely on a third-party RTOS outside of Zephyr can still integrate Nordic’s Bluetooth stack into their system.

Outlook

For Nordic, the addition is as much strategic as it is technical. By lowering the barrier for entry, the company keeps its large base of nRF52 developers engaged while encouraging gradual adoption of Zephyr. For engineers, the choice now becomes clearer: use Bare Metal when simplicity and memory savings matter, and move to Zephyr when concurrency, protocol stacks, or advanced features demand it.

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