Join us on June 5, 2025 in Vienna, Austria for an evening dedicated to embedded systems, open source projects, and practical demos. Whether you are a firmware developer, hobbyist, or just curious about Zephyr RTOS, this meetup has something for you.
You will get to:
- Grab a snack and make new connections
- Hear short, focused talks from industry experts
- Take home a free development board (limited supply)
Agenda:
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM – Welcome snacks and drinks
5:30 PM – 5:40 PM – Welcome Note, Aleksandar Vrglevski, Technology expert at the Vienna Business Agency.
6:10 PM – 6:40 PM – (30 mins) – Cutting the Cord: BLE and USB in the Open Fencing Project, Stefan Jaritz, Embedded Software Engineer, Voxtronic Austria GmbH
Traditional fencing spools break down frequently, and commercial wireless solutions are often prohibitively expensive. Open Fencing is a hobbyist-driven initiative to build a low-cost, open-source alternative using readily available hardware and software.
This presentation dives into the firmware behind the “”Touche”” device, focusing on USB and BLE communication. We’ll explore how the Adafruit Feather nRF52840 is configured using device trees, kernel configs, and Makefiles. Key features include setting up USB CDC ACM, defining a BLE GATT database, and wiring up a button to simulate a fencing blade tip. A lightweight protocol handles data exchange over both BLE and USB, and a Python-based demonstrator using bleak and pyserial brings it all to life.
6:40 PM – 7:10 PM – (30 mins) – An Introduction to Zephyr Device Driver, Christian Kurz, Senior Field Application Engineer, Nordic Semiconductor
The Zephyr RTOS is more than just a kernel. It also includes an extensive collection of drivers, such as sensor drivers, communication drivers, display drivers, file systems and much more. And of course it is also possible to write your own drivers that you can use in your own project or even share with the Zephyr community. This presentation will give you some hints on how to write your own driver successfully.
7:15 PM – 7:30 PM – Break time
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM – (30 mins) – Controlling IoT Devices with Zephyr and Thingsboard: A Practical Walkthrough (Based on LTE-M), Christian Hirsch , digidrip / hirsch.zone
This presentation demonstrates the integration of Zephyr with Thingsboard to control one device based on the readings from a second device. It outlines the necessary steps to set up both devices and configure Thingsboard to facilitate a remote procedure call to one device, driven by the telemetry readings of the second device. The example utilized involves two nRF9* devices with LTE-M connectivity; however, the described approach is also applicable to other connectivity options such as WiFi and Ethernet.
8:10 PM – 8:45 PM – (45 mins) – GNU/Linux on the TI DRA821 – A Preliminary Safety Concept, Nicholas Mc Guire, Open-Source Automation Development Lab (OSADL eG)
Building complex safety related systems with GNU/Linux needs to look at the assurance path in a very different way than traditional “deterministic” systems. Never the less we can not (yet) justify deploying GNU/Linux directly without anchoring safety properties on a low(er) complexity computer element that (mostly) follows traditional assurance/certification measures and techniques. To resolve the need for safe GNU/Linux on a multi-core we propose zephyr on an MCU as its safety anchor. The concept is introduced based on review of the safety manual of the TI DRA821 and applying the lessons we learned from OSADLs SIL2LinuxMP project.
8:55 PM – 9:00 PM – Thank you note and board distribution
Thanks to the Sponsors:
This meetup wouldn’t be possible without our generous sponsors. Special thanks to STMicroelectronics and Nordic Semiconductor for providing the hardware as giveaways to the attendees. We are also grateful to the Expat Center of the Vienna Business Agency for hosting the venue, and to Nordic Semiconductor for covering food and beverages.
Register Soon!
If you haven’t registered yet, please do so as soon as possible and share this event with your colleagues. Seating is limited and filling up fast. Registration will close soon. We look forward to seeing you on June 5th at 5:00 PM for an evening of learning, collaboration, and community! Register now!
About the Community Meetups:
This meetup is part of the Zephyr Community Meetup Series, gatherings hosted by community members, with support from the Zephyr Project.
If you are excited about the Zephyr Project and want to share it with your local community, consider hosting an event in your city. Whether you are in Vienna or halfway across the globe, we encourage passionate individuals to get involved.
Reach out to us and explore how you can bring Zephyr to your community and make a difference in the world of IoT development.
To keep up to date about the project, subscribe to the Zephyr quarterly newsletter or connect with us on @ZephyrIoT, Zephyr Project LinkedIn or the Zephyr Discord Channel to talk with community and TSC members.