Nordic Semiconductor has released SDK 14, which supports Bluetooth 5 -compatible softdevice.
We’re thinking about if we should upgrade the examples to SDK 14. On the positive side, this would bring us BLE-5 compatibility and access to newest development from Nordic Semi.
On the negative side, example firmware, especially Espruino, would no longer be compatible. We’d of course port the Ruuvi Firmware and Nordic has already provided Eddystone.
Upgrade path from 12.3 to 14.0 is reliable, but there are reports about downgrade corrupting bootloaders.
Give us your thoughts on this matter. Is the possible confusion about versioning firmware to suit the tags worth the hottest new feature?
I think we should do it but first to run more tests where we upgrade the SoftDevice + bootloader + application code over-the-air.
If this works ~100% and no devices will get bricked, for now, we can continue shipping with the current SoftDevice & bootloader preinstalled and let users make the upgrade.
However the code is at alpha stage, so expect breaking changes.
There’s been some adjustments to the structure, for example the drivers are now in their own submodules and the drivers have Bosch and STM drivers installed as submodules too.
IIRC the code can advertise manufacturer data in advertisement package, local name and Nordic UART service in scan response, is over-the-air updateable with Nordic DFU service and has a proof-of-concept GATT application on Nordic UART Service.
In general I’m not recommending using the code for anything yet, though.