- Zephyr 4.3 feature freeze!
- Peter Korsgaard, the author of Buildroot, has been contributing to Zephyr, particularly around the EEPROM API.
- Qt completed their acquisition of IAR Systems. Qt already has some level of Zephyr support.
- The “search by compatible” feature is now live in the Zephyr board catalog. You can now search for boards by specific sensors, peripherals, or IP blocks (e.g., all boards with a BME sensor).
- A new Devicetree linter (dts-lint) is now enforced in CI to check formatting of devicetree files. It can auto-fix issues and is part of the dts-lsp language server folks can use in VS Code, Vim, etc. to get advanced Devicetree editing features (also see the Tech Talk on the topic)
Board Documentation as a Database
- Benjamin and Fabio discuss whether Zephyr accidentally built the best database on the internet for boards and system-on-chips.
- Most vendor sites have inconsistent search/filter capabilities, and there’s nothing that searches across vendors with structured data like Zephyr’s devicetree-based approach.
- Benjamin is (half-)considering exposing the board catalog data as a formal API, not just the current JSON file.
- The structured devicetree data is driving better documentation quality — people are more careful about binding descriptions now that they’re prominently displayed.
New Shields Added
- Adafruit DS2484 1-Wire Shield
- Adafruit LIS3MDL Shield (magnetometer)
- Adafruit SHT40/SHT41/SHT45 humidity shields
- Adafruit INA228 Power Monitor — 85V, 20-bit precision high-side current/power monitor with energy/charge accumulator
- Adafruit LPS22 Shield (pressure sensor)
- Adafruit AD5693 DAC shield
- Canis Labs CANPico shield for Raspberry Pi Pico with MCP251xFD CAN controller. Check out Canis Labs’ videos on CAN bus security!
New Boards Added (Selection)
- RAK3112 — ESP32-S3-based module with LoRa, BLE, and Wi-Fi
- PIC32CZ CA80 Curiosity Ultra — Cortex-M7 with gigabit ethernet, high-speed USB, 8MB flash, 1MB SRAM. Part of Microchip’s big push with 4-5 new boards this week!
- Renesas EK-RA8D2 and EK-RA8M2 — 1GHz Cortex-M85 (!), gigabit ethernet with switch, 1MB MRAM, 2MB SRAM, external 64MB flash and SDRAM, camera port
- Pebble Time 2 and Pebble 2 Duo — SiFli-based, still early-stage support
New Drivers
- Heart Rate Monitoring:
- MAX30101 optical heart rate sensor — now supports multiple instances (btw, Fabio wants to know: “What application needs to monitor multiple hearts?!”)
- MAX32664C Biometric Sensor Hub — includes the algorithm and reports actual heart rate (contributed by folks from the ZSWatch project)
- DA7212 audio codec from NXP FRDM-MCXN236 board.
- ALS31300 3D Hall Effect Sensor for industrial joysticks
- MTCH9010 liquid leak detector from Microchip — uses electrodes (or PCB traces) and likely includes smart anti-corrosion features
- NXP SC18IS606 I2C-to-SPI bridge
- HUB12 interface LED matrix display controller
Other Notable Changes
- New Quality of Service (QoS) over Ethernet sample
- More support for STM32 with firmware in external flash
Tips for Getting Changes Merged During Stabilization
- Use the word “fix” in your commit message if it’s actually fixing something!
- Set the milestone in GitHub to 4.3 (if you have permissions)
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