Nordic Semiconductor Nordic Thingy:53 prototyping platform

Nordic Semiconductor’s Nordic Thingy:53 is a multisensor prototyping platform with multiprotocol short-range wireless connectivity and support for embedded machine learning (ML). It is useful for building wireless proofs of concept and prototypes with ML capabilities on short development schedules.

The platform is based on Nordic’s nRF5340 dual-core Arm Cortex M-33 multiprotocol system-on-chip (SoC) and incorporates the company’s nPM1100 power management IC (PMIC) and nRF21540 front end module, a power amplifier/low-noise amplifier range extender. It supports Bluetooth LE, Thread, Matter, Zigbee, IEEE 802.15.4, NFC and Bluetooth mesh RF protocols, and comes with preinstalled firmware for embedded ML directly onto the platform.

The product is supplied with Edge Impulse firmware and the nRF Edge Impulse mobile app. The firmware collects training and test data from the sensors on the platform and forwards the data over the air using Bluetooth LE to the app. The app forwards the data to Edge Impulse Studio (a cloud-based development platform for ML), where it is used to build and test an embedded ML model; this model can then be deployed back to the platform using the same app. The nRF Programmer app meanwhile simplifies prototyping by allowing the developer to select from pre-made firmware and then update firmware directly over the air from an iOS or Android device, without needing a desktop computer.

The product includes a six-axis inertial measurement unit and a low-power accelerometer. Environmental sensors include temperature, humidity, air quality and air pressure. The product also incorporates colour and light sensors, a buzzer and a pulse density modulation (PDM) microphone. ML functionality enables developers to use the platform’s sensors in applications such as voice recognition or movement pattern detection. The accelerometer and the PDM microphone can also be used to wake the SoC from sleep when triggered by motion or sound events.

The product features a USB-C charge-and-data port, and a Qwiic, Stemma and Grove-compatible four-pin JST connector. It is delivered with a debug and current measurement board, which provides access to relevant pins that would otherwise be unavailable, for troubleshooting application code and monitoring power consumption with additional debug tools.