Downloading softdevice to PCA10059 USB Dongle Board Using nrfutil

In the previous post I have described how to download firmware files to PCA10059 board that do not require a softdevice to run. This time I will expand on that and show how easy it is to add a softdevice to the mix.

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Unfortunately it seems that you can’t merge your application .hex file and softdevice .hex file. You have to provide them separately to the nrfutil tool.

To demonstrate firmware download we will be using 
example ble_app_blinky from Nordic SDK located in SDK_root/examples/ble_peripheral/ble_app_blinky/ folder. In order to make your life easier I have bundled app .hex and softdevice together:

Unpack this file to a folder of your choice and start a terminal window in that folder. I am using PowerShell on MS Windows 10. Enter the following command into a terminal:

nrfutil pkg generate --hw-version 52 --sd-req 0x00 --sd-id 0xA9 --softdevice .\s140_nrf52_6.0.0_softdevice.hex --application-version 1 --application .\nrf52840_xxaa.hex zip.zip

This will generate a package zip.zip. Now we have to program our board with the following command:

nrfutil dfu usb_serial -pkg zip.zip -p COM6 -b 115200

And with that if you open nRF Connect on your mobile device and scan for the available devices you will see the Nordic_blinky device. You can even connect to it and turn the on-board led ON/OFF and read the button state.

Updating the application firmware without softdevice

From now on you can package only the application without packaging the softdevice along with it. The command is similar to the one used when softdevice wasn’t used, but with one simple change. First download this altered ble_app_blinky .hex file or use you own:

Unpack it and start terminal window in the same window as the unpacked .hex file. Once opened, type in the following command:

nrfutil pkg generate --hw-version 52 --sd-req 0xA9 --application-version 1 --application .\altered_nrf52840_xxaa.hex zip.zip

The small modification I mentioned is the –sd-req argument. Instead of 0x00 we are now using 0xA9. This is because 0xA9 is the s140_nrf52_6.0.0 softdevice ID. Every softdevice, and every version have their ID. You can find a list of those IDs and a lot more info on nrfutil here.

From here I would recommend creating your own program script, so you don’t have to manualy put in these two commands.

Thank you for reading!