This blog is written by Tomohiro Kaneko(@misoji) a Hardware and Hobbyist engineer. (Discord usernames in brackets).
On March 27, 2026, the fourth Zephyr Project Meetup in Japan took place in Nagoya, Aichi. This meetup was a wonderful opportunity for attendees to deepen their understanding of Zephyr RTOS, network with peers, and share valuable insights. Below are the highlights from the event, ranging from the technical sessions to the conversations that continued during the networking sessions.
Venue
The meetup was held at the Brother Museum Communication Hall in Nagoya. Its convenient access from Nagoya Station attracted participants from all over the country.
Picture: The Nagoya Station facade
Atsuta-Jingu Shrine is located near this museum, the largest and most prestigious shrine in the Nagoya area. This shrine enshrines a lost legendary sword and houses a large collection of Japanese swords. Some of them may even have helped shape the image of the “samurai sword” seen in works from the classic ‘Wizardry’ to the more recent ‘Ghost of Tsushima’.
Picture: Atsuta-Jingu Shrine, An ancient shrine dedicated to a lost legendary sword, located near the venue.
Picture: The promenade to the main shrine
Meetup
This meetup was held in the Brother Museum, where many sewing machines and other products are on display.
Brother Industries was originally founded as a sewing machine manufacturer. They have evolved into a leader with formidable expertise in embedded systems, and the museum beautifully showcases this long-standing heritage of precision and innovation.
The program included a special tour of the Brother Museum, which helped foster interaction and deeper connections among the attendees.
Additionally, there was a fantastic surprise for on-site participants: Nordic Semiconductor generously provided the nRF54L15 DK—their next-generation ultra-low-power platform—free of charge. This offered a perfect opportunity for attendees to try out Zephyr RTOS on cutting-edge hardware.
Photo highlights from the venue included:
Picture: Sign for the venue, the Brother Museum.
Picture: A wall displaying historical sewing machines from around the world.
Picture: A demonstration explaining the operating principle of a sewing machine.
Picture: Zephyr Project Meetup; Nagoya, Japan was held at the Brother Museum Communication Hall.
Picture: Nordic Semiconductor generously provided the nRF54L15 DK for participants.
Session Highlights
Nordic Semiconductor Invited Talk – John Kenney
The first session was an invited talk delivered online by John Kenney from Nordic Semiconductor. He discussed the company’s goals for low-power wireless communication and sustainability.
A key highlight was their approach to Edge AI and device management cloud solutions. He explained how their NPU-equipped products and “Neuton AI”—an ultra-compact AI model that runs in just 5KB—can significantly reduce latency and power consumption. He also introduced the benefits of nRF Cloud, a powerful management platform that enables device observability and OTA updates post-deployment. Slides here.
Recent Arduino Trends: Uno Q and ArduinoCore-zephyr – @soburi
@soburi provided a technical deep dive into the integration of the Arduino platform with Zephyr RTOS.
He shared the background of Qualcomm’s acquisition of the Arduino project and introduced the architecture of the new Zephyr-based “Arduino Uno Q” board. The session covered advanced topics such as utilizing Zephyr’s dynamic loading (LLEXT) to run Arduino APIs and using the DeviceTree “Nexus” feature to resolve compatibility issues with unique pin assignments. Slides here.
Implementing OpenPLC with Zephyr (RTOS) – @misoji_engineer
@misoji_engineer reported on an impressive project to port “OpenPLC,” a software-based PLC, from Linux to Zephyr. He demonstrated that the jitter, which typically occurs in the tens of microseconds in a Linux environment, was dramatically improved to the nanosecond level on Zephyr. Furthermore, he highlighted the advantages of Zephyr’s hardware abstraction (DeviceTree), which allows the same code to be deployed across different microcontroller boards (such as Raspberry Pi Pico and Nordic boards) without modification. Slides here.
Trying Matter with Zephyr RTOS: Running on Non-Official Boards – @jun1_hirata
@jun1_hirata spoke about his challenge of porting “Matter,” the smart home standard, to an STMicroelectronics Nucleo board with Ethernet support—a board not officially supported in the standard samples. He shared a realistic account of battling build and runtime errors, including stack/heap shortages and NVS (Non-Volatile Storage) configuration issues. While the project is still in progress, he successfully reached the commissioning phase, showing promising potential for future development.
Does Zephyr Run on Wio BG770A? – @MATSUOKA Takashi
@MATSUOKA Takashi shared his experience porting Zephyr to the “Wio BG770A,” a low-power cellular IoT board. By adjusting the DeviceTree and supporting the UF2 bootloader, he successfully achieved “L-chika” (LED blinking).
However, he detailed the hurdles faced with cellular communication, such as the module’s 1.8V open-drain connection and the current lack of support for “CMUX (Multiplexer)”, which allows mixing AT commands and PPP. These real-world “gotchas” provided valuable lessons for new Zephyr developers. Slides here.
Inter-Core Communication between ARM and RISC-V on Zephyr (RTOS) – @misoji_engineer
Returning to the stage, @misoji_engineer demonstrated inter-core communication (IPC) between ARM and RISC-V cores using Zephyr’s standard features.
In his demo, the ARM core handled heavy AI processing (motion recognition) and sent the results as messages to the RISC-V core, which then performed lightweight PWM control. He concluded that standard support for heterogeneous multi-core communication is a major strength of Zephyr in the modern multi-core era. Slides here.
Retrospective: Previous Meetup in Toyosu – @Kurokawa
@Kurokawa reviewed the previous Zephyr Meetup held in Toyosu, Tokyo, in December. He shared the survey results from the approximately 40 attendees and discussed the outlook for “Meetup Tokyo 2026”
He also briefly introduced a new high-end Renesas board (equipped with Cortex-A76 + R52) that recently added Zephyr support. Slides here.
How to Write a Recap Blog – @soburi
In the final lightning talk, @soburi shared tips for writing the English “Recap” blogs published after meetups. He emphasized that “the scene in a conference room is pretty much the same everywhere in the world,” and that including information about “regional characteristics” such as culture and food would make the article more interesting. He also stated that the recap blogs received many views according to LinkedIn and that he hoped it would motivate people to participate in Japanese events. Slides here.
Picture: He was wondering whether introducing matcha cream spaghetti — one of Nagoya’s most eccentric culinary curiosities — would appeal to overseas audiences as a memorable bit of local flavour.
After-Party & Networking
During the breaks, attendees enjoyed a tour of the museum, using the time to refresh and deepen their connections. After the sessions concluded, the group moved to a social gathering for the evening. The technical discussions and networking continued late into the night, fostering a vibrant community spirit.
Thanks to:
A sincere thank you to everyone who attended the Zephyr Project Meetup Nagoya and to all the speakers who shared their outstanding expertise and insights.
We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to the following for their support in making this event possible:
- Nordic Semiconductor (for the invited talk and the generous provision of development kits)
- The Zephyr RTOS User Group – Japan (especially Hiroshi Tokita (@soburi), Yasushi Shoji (@yashi), Junichi Hirata(@jun1_hirata) )
A Final Note from Nagoya
Picture of Japan’s famous cherry blossoms; it was just the peak of the spring season. We hope you will come to Nagoya to enjoy “Hanami” (cherry blossom viewing) with us next year!
Picture: Japan’s famous cherry blossoms, as it was just the spring season. The cherry blossoms around Nagoya Castle were in full bloom.
Picture: The cherry blossoms at night in Tsurumai Park, a short distance from the venue. During cherry blossom season, lots of people gather there, but they seem more interested in eating snacks from the food stalls than admiring the blossoms.
Upcoming Meetups
The momentum of the Zephyr community in Japan continues to build! We are excited to announce our next two meetups. Whether you are a long-time contributor or just starting your Zephyr journey, we would love to have you join us:
- Zephyr Project Meetup – Kochi, Japan
- Date: May 16, 2026
- Details & Registration: https://zephyr-rtos.connpass.com/event/387401/
- Zephyr Project Meetup – Sapporo, Japan
- Date: June 26, 2026
- Details & Registration: https://zephyr-rtos.connpass.com/event/386410/
We look forward to seeing the community expand across Japan!