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10 Years and Still Learning — Zephyr Podcast #025

By March 6, 2026No Comments

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The summary below was automatically generated using the assistance of AI tools.

Episode Summary

  • Winterthur Meetup Recordings Now Available: The recordings from the Zephyr meetup held in Winterthur, Switzerland on February 12th are now on YouTube. The program featured talks on Rust with Zephyr, professional audio over IP, replacing CAN with single-pair Ethernet and TSN, TF-M security, and using Zephyr + CAN bus in Formula Student racing cars. The event drew over 120 attendees — basically a conference at this point.
  • ZSWatch Dev Kit on Elecrow: The ZSWatch, an open-source, open-hardware smartwatch project running Zephyr, now has a dev kit available on Elecrow for ~$100. It features cellular/GPS connectivity, a round display, battery, buzzer, and various connectors. Nice to see a personal project mature to the point of selling dev kits. Also a plug for an upcoming Zephyr Tech Talk with Christian Hirsch on the nRF9151 MicroMod Processor and the SparkFun MicroMod ecosystem.
  • Golioth Acquired by Canonical: Golioth, the IoT device management startup that’s been deeply involved with Zephyr for years, has been acquired by Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu).
  • STM32C5 Announced: ST keeps shipping — after the ultra-cheap Cortex-M0+ C0 series, they’ve unveiled the STM32C5: a Cortex-M33 at 144 MHz packed with USB, Ethernet, low-power timers, FD-CAN, and hobbyist-friendly small packages. Some variants are already available on Mouser. No Zephyr support yet, but given the existing STM32 driver ecosystem it shouldn’t be far off.
  • AI/LLM Contribution Guidelines: The Zephyr Process Working Group discussed and quickly reached consensus on basic AI contribution guidelines, inspired by what the Linux kernel does. Contributors are encouraged to disclose AI tool usage via a tag in commit messages (similar to Signed-off-by), including the model and version used. The contributor remains fully responsible for the code under the DCO. The PR received ~12 approvals — the project’s stance on AI tooling is broadly positive. We’d love to hear your stories of using LLMs with Zephyr on Discord or YouTube comments!
  • Job Shout-Out — Qualcomm (San Diego / Cork): Qualcomm is hiring embedded software engineers to work on Zephyr, based in San Diego, US or Cork, Ireland. And a reminder: if you’re looking for Zephyr talent or have job offers to share, drop them in the #job-postings channel on Discord.
  • CLUTGen — Calibration Lookup Table Generator: A neat new Zephyr-compatible external module that generates lookup tables for converting raw ADC readings into calibrated values (battery charge, temperature, etc.). Supports linear, spline, and polynomial interpolation, and integrates into the Zephyr build system — header files are generated on the fly from your sample data and configuration.
  • Zephyr Turns 10 — Anniversary Survey Report: The Zephyr 10-year anniversary report is out, produced in partnership with the Linux Foundation and Intel. Hundreds of responses from the embedded community. Some highlights discussed on the show:
    • Languages: C at 96% (no surprise), C++ at 30% (higher than expected), Python/MicroPython at 11%, Rust at 10%, and assembly still at ~10%. Lua even makes an appearance.
    • RTOS selection factors: Documentation, maturity/stability, and ecosystem top the list. Commercial support options ranked low. Ease of use/learning curve sits in the “somewhat important” zone.
    • Regional differences: Europe and US/Canada have more products shipping with Zephyr; APAC is earlier in adoption but more positive about Zephyr’s impact on development.
    • Biggest impacts: Hardware portability and community/ecosystem support top the chart. Security posture for IoT was surprisingly low.
    • What’s worsened: Learning curve (~20% said worsened), technical complexity (~12%), and ease of setup stand out. Worth paying attention to beginner feedback.
    • Challenges ahead: Maintenance/long-term support ranks #1, followed by safety certification and onboarding/documentation. Competition from other RTOSes ranked very low.
    • Barriers to contributing: Lack of developer time/resources is the clear winner, followed by lack of open-source contribution expertise. Delay in code review feedback is the top challenge for active contributors.

    The report also covers AI/LLM usage in the project and includes industry expert interviews — well worth a full read.

  • New GNSS Driver: GlobalTop PA6H: A new driver for the GlobalTop PA6H GNSS module (MediaTek MT3339-based) with integrated antenna. A good reference for learning how the modem subsystem and NMEA parsing work in Zephyr. An Adafruit breakout board is available for it.
  • New Driver: AC057TC1 6-Color E-Ink Display: A new e-ink display driver supporting six colors (black, white, green, blue, red, yellow/orange) — requiring a custom pixel format definition since it doesn’t fit standard RGB schemes. Think fancy multi-color price tags. A board contribution is expected to follow.
  • New Board: Qualcomm QCC744M EVK: The first Qualcomm board to land in Zephyr. Features a tri-radio chipset (Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, 802.15.4/Zigbee) with a Bouffalo Lab MCU.
  • New Board: Seeed Studio XIAO RP2350: Yet another Seeed XIAO board, this time with the RP2350 (Pico 2). Tiny form factor with an RGB LED, castellated pads, and solid existing RP2350 support in Zephyr.
  • New Board: NXP FRDM-iMXRT1186: Support added for this NXP Freedom board featuring two Ethernet ports with an internal switch — designed for EtherCAT daisy-chaining and industrial networking applications.
  • Embedded World Next Week + Open Hardware Summit: Embedded World in Nuremberg starts next week — stop by the Zephyr booth and check out the dedicated conference track. Also, the Open Hardware Summit 2026 takes place in May in Berlin — schedule is out and they’re still looking for sponsors.