Building for the Sparkfun Thing+ nRF9160 using recent Zephyr

JJonBosley · Nov 11, 2022

I am able to build the sample programs following the instructions on the “hookup guide” page, but it involves downloading an old version of Zephyr and using a lot of customizations for the Nordic. Because this runs Zephyr, I figured that I didn’t need Nordic-specific stuff. I’ve been trying to use a recent version of Zephyr (with its own samples), but it appears that the Nordic-specific customizations (such as the *.cmake files that get included from the standard boilerplate.cmake file) are critical to building something that runs on the Sparkfun board.

Is there any guide for working with the Sparkfun Thing+ nRF9160, when starting from a “stock” Zephyr build environment? Or should just accept that I need to build using this older, customized Zephyr environment?

Please excuse what might be a really basic question, as I am relatively new to Zephyr. Thank you!

jaredwolff · Nov 11, 2022

JonBosley this is a great question!

Because Nordic’s modem library and dual core configuration is proprietary, they’ve decided not to put it in the Apache 2.0 based Zephyr repository. Apache is fairly permissive which doesn’t always work for businesses.

They also include lots of Nordic specific helper code (which you can choose to use or not) and also, as you saw, sample code that is specific to the nRF9160.

Unfortunately the documentation on Sparkfun’s site is quite out of date in only a short amount of time. You should be able to get away with using the documentation here: https://docs.jaredwolff.com which is more up to date.

Thanks!