Hi Jered. Thank you for your response and a fantastic site. I always view the activity on a forum/blogs as of great importance when committing to a dev board and platform.
I’m somewhat torn between which nRF9160 board to purchase. A few do have a nRF9160 in the standard Feather format with the 10-pin SWD and Sparkfun do their Thingy Plu but it is almost 8mm longer and won’t align well with the Feather doubler/triplers that I often use. I’m well into the Feather design with nRF52840, Particle Boron,/Argon/Xenon, Raspberry Pi Pico, ESP32-S3, plus my own Feather boards with GPS, etc.
I know fitting a 10-pin SWD is probably a challenge but then folks will save around $70 by not purchasing a Tag Connect. In reviewing your board, you may be able to replace the current Tag Connect holes by a Mini SWD 0.05″ pitch connector (only 6.1mm compared to a regular SWD 12.6mm) and move the Tag Connect holes to the other side of the board. An other option may be to support two board types, one with a 10-pin mini SWD and the other with the current design. Other nRF9160 boards have shown that it is possible, so certainly worth a serious consideration. It’ll make the board a more attractive purchase.
I use Particle Borons (nRF8240 + u-blox SARA R410M/R510S LTE with eSim) but as a huge fan Nordic Semi’s low power devices and Zephyr/nRF Connect SDK, I’d like to check out a nRF9160 Feather running Zephyr. Of course, there is always an option of using Zephyr with Boron but prefer to evaluate the low power nRF9160 with its modem/GPS. Particle Boron LTE with their generous free LTE Plan that includes support for up to 100 devices & 100MB of data is superb and invaluable. There are no real issues with Particle Device OS (FreeRTOS), I have a preference for development using nRF Connect SDK / Zephyr or vanilla Zephyr across the multiple devices that I use and deploy.
In addition to the 10-pin Mini SWD, I’m also looking for a nRF9160 Feather that has a PMIC/fuel cell for battery powered applications. I’m astounded when I find that battery operated devices, esp. those using low power nRF chips do not have an onboard fuel cell. Even the new Adafruit ESP32-S3 range now how onboard fuel cells. The cost of adding a PMIC/fuel is minimal. I’ve seen one or two nRF9160 boards with a fuel cell but lack a mini SWD connector.
Please consider adding a PMIC/fuel cell to your next nRF9160 Feather board upgrade.
Any chance you can share what new changes you have in mind for the next iteration of your nRF9160 board? A vote strongly for the addition or another SKU of the board with a mini 10-pin SWD and a PMIC/fuel cell.
Once again, Thank you for a fantastic site and all the work you’ve been doing to promote Zephyr and the nRF9160 Feather board.
