Nordic semiconductor is the king of the wireless hill. Their chips support a variety of protocols used in the internet of things.

The recently announced nRF52840 Dongle uses the nRF52840 chip on a USB stick-like PCB. The $10 planar can plug into a PC. After that, it supports all Nordic semiconductor development tools.

The PCB doubles as USB connector

Keep in mind that debugging is not available on these evaluation boards. If you want to debug, a more expensive development kit such as the nRF52840 DK is needed. Due to the high price, distributor margins are wide. Take a look at the figure to see how oemsecrets can save you money.

From technical point of view, the dongle is extremely versatile. It supports Bluetooth 5, but can also be used with other protocols:

  • Bluetooth LE
  • Bluetooth Mesh
  • Thread
  • Zigbee
  • 802.15.4
  • ANT/ANT+

In addition to these features, the product also has a set of GPIO pins available from the side of the PCB. The interface pinout is somewhat difficult to find, but is available for you right here.

Thanks to the presence of the supply pins, the PCB can be used in a standalone fashion. Program it from your PC, and solder it to your circuit to get started. Due to a price of less than 10 USD a pop, small series could even use the PCB like a process computer.