Getting Started with Zephyr RTOS on Laird Connectivity’s BL652/BL654

Do you know how to bring up Zephyr RTOS on Laird Connectivity’s BL652 and BL654 Bluetooth modules? If not, this tutorial from Zephyr Project member Laird Connectivity will help. You can find the step-by-step guide and the video below. These materials originally ran on the Laird Connectivity website. For more content like this, please visit their resource page.

Getting Started with Zephyr on Ubuntu 20.04

This tutorial is based on the Zephyr Getting Started Guide. The only difference is we added an extra step (i.e. see step 5 below) to install the nRF Command Line Tools.

This tutorial will show you how to setup the Zephyr development environment, build the Blinky app and flash the app into the BL65x dev kit.

To watch video tutorial, click here.

Update the OS

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Install Dependencies and verify CMake version.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends git cmake ninja-build gperf \
     ccache dfu-util device-tree-compiler wget \
     python3-dev python3-pip python3-setuptools python3-tk python3-wheel xz-utils file \
     make gcc gcc-multilib g++-multilib libsdl2-dev
     
cmake --version

If CMake version is not 3.13.1 or later, please visit Zephyr Getting Started Guide for steps on how to update CMake.

Get Zephyr and Install Python Dependencies
- Install west, and make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH environment variable
```
pip3 install --user -U west
echo 'export PATH=~/.local/bin:"$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
```
- Get Zephyr Source Code
```
west init ~/zephyrproject
cd ~/zephyrproject
west update
```
- Export Zephyr CMake package
```
west zephyr-export
```
- Zephyr’s scripts/requirements.txt file declares additional Python dependencies. Install them with pip3
```
pip3 install --user -r ~/zephyrproject/zephyr/scripts/requirements.txt
```

Install Toolchain

Download the latest SDK installer

cd ~
wget https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/sdk-ng/releases/download/v0.11.3/zephyr-sdk-0.11.3-setup.run

Run the installer, installing the SDK in ~/zephyr-sdk-0.11.3

chmod +x zephyr-sdk-0.11.3-setup.run
./zephyr-sdk-0.11.3-setup.run -- -d ~/zephyr-sdk-0.11.3

Install udev rules so we can flash the boards as a regular user

sudo cp ~/zephyr-sdk-0.11.3/sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/usr/share/openocd/contrib/60-openocd.rules /etc/udev/rules.d
sudo udevadm control --reload

Install nRF Command Line Tools Pkg
- Download Tools from Nordic Semiconductor Websitehttps://www.nordicsemi.com/Software-and-Tools/Development-Tools/nRF-Command-Line-Tools/Download#in
- Extract files into a directory of your choice
- cd into the directory and install
```
sudo apt-get install libncurses5
sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite JLink_Linux_V680a_x86_64.deb
sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite nRF-Command-Line-Tools_10_9_0_Linux-amd64.deb
```

Build Blinky

Build for BL652

cd ~/zephyrproject/zephyr
west build -p auto -b bl652_dvk samples/basic/blinky

Build for BL653

cd ~/zephyrproject/zephyr
west build -p auto -b bl653_dvk samples/basic/blinky

Build for BL654

cd ~/zephyrproject/zephyr
west build -p auto -b bl654_dvk samples/basic/blinky

Flash the build
- Connect Ubuntu PC to USB2 port of the dev kit
- Erase and then flash the build
```
nrfjprog -e
west flash
```
Verify LED1 is flashing

For more details about Laird Connectivity’s line of Bluetooth 5 modules, please visit: https://www.lairdconnect.com/bluetooth-5-modules