The Nordic Thingy:53™ is a battery-operated prototyping platform for Internet of Things (IoT). It is ideal for rapid development of prototypes for IoT systems.
The Nordic Thingy:53 includes sensors that gather data about its own movements and the surrounding environment. Temperature, humidity, air quality, air pressure, color, audio, and light data can be easily extracted for local or remote analysis. For input, the Nordic Thingy:53 offers two user-programmable buttons. Visual output is achieved with an RGB indicator LED, while a buzzer can provide audible output.
The preprogrammed firmware on the Nordic Thingy:53 allows to connect to the nRF Edge Impulse mobile application that can be used to sample training and test data from the Nordic Thingy:53 sensors. The sampled data can be used to train machine learning models in the Edge Impulse Studio. Trained machine learning models can be deployed to the Nordic Thingy:53 through Bluetooth® Low Energy using the nRF Edge Impulse mobile application. The firmware has been developed using the nRF Connect Software Development Kit (SDK).
The preprogrammed firmware on the Nordic Thingy:53 can be easily updated through Bluetooth Low Energy to other samples from the nRF Connect SDK using the nRF Programmer application for iOS and Android or through Universal Serial Bus (USB) using the nRF Connect Programmer.
The firmware can be updated and debugged also by using an external programmer or debug probe, for example, the nRF5340 Development Kit (DK) or a J-Link device supporting Arm® Cortex®-M33.
The Nordic Thingy:53 integrates the nRF5340 SoC which supports Bluetooth Low Energy, 802.15.4, and Near Field Communication (NFC) as a passive tag. The Nordic Thingy:53 integrates also the nRF21540 RF Front-End Module (FEM) for extended range and the nPM1100 Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) for power management and charging of the 1350 mA Lithium-polymer (Li-Poly) battery.
Source code for firmware, hardware layout, and schematics are available on the Nordic web site www.nordicsemi.com.
The Nordic Thingy:53 has two 2.4 GHz antennas. One of them is connected to the nRF5340 SoC through an RF switch for TX output power up to +3 dBm. The other one is connected to the nRF21540 RF FEM with TX output power up to +20 dBm.
NFC in the Nordic Thingy:53 operates as a passive tag which means that it does not feature a reader function. The Nordic Thingy:53 can use the tag function for the Out of Band (OOB) pairing feature as described in the Bluetooth Core Specification.
Key features of Nordic Thingy:53
- Two 2.4 GHz antennas and one NFC passive tag antenna
- RF FEM for increased range
- Insertable current measurement and debug board for easy power profiling and debugging
- Qwiic and STEMMA QT compatible connector for easy prototyping with breakout boards
- User-programmable buttons and RGB LED
- Environmental sensor for temperature, humidity, air quality, and air pressure
- Color and light sensor
- Low-power accelerometer
- 6-axis IMU with gyroscope and accelerometer
- Magnetometer
- Pulse Density Modulation (PDM) microphone with wake-on-sound functionality
- Buzzer
- 64 Mb external memory with Quad Serial Peripheral Interface (QSPI) interface
- Rechargeable Li-Poly battery with 1350 mAh capacity
- Computer connection and battery charging through USB-C
- Normal operating temperature range 0–35°C
nRF5340 aQFN94 SoC
- Application core
- 128–64 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 with TrustZone® technology
- 1 MB flash and 512 kB low leakage RAM
- Arm TrustZone CryptoCell™-312 security subsystem
- QSPI peripheral for communicating with an external flash memory device
- Execute-in-place with optional on-the-fly encryption and decryption
- NFC-A tag with wake-on field and touch-to-pair
- Up to five Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) master/slave with EasyDMA
- Up to four Inter-integrated Circuit (I2C) compatible two-wire master/slave with EasyDMA
- Up to four Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) (Clear to Send (CTS)/Request to Send (RTS)) with EasyDMA
- Audio peripherals: I2C, digital microphone interface (PDM)
- Up to four Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) units with EasyDMA
- 12-bit, 200 ksps ADC with EasyDMA, eight configurable channels with programmable gain
- Full-speed (12 Mbps) USB device
- Network core
nRF21540 RF FEM
- FEM with RF Power Amplifier (PA) and Low-Noise Amplifier (LNA)
- Supports Bluetooth Low Energy, IEEE 802.15.4, and proprietary applications
- Output power 20 dBm at 3.0 V (maximum TX output power +22 dBm at 3.6 V)
- Adjustable output power to ±1 dB from 5 to 21 dBm
- Receive gain +13 dB
- Control interface through I/O, SPI, or a combination of both
nPM1100 PMIC
- 400 mA linear Li-ion/Li-Po battery charger with thermal protection
- Automatic trickle, constant current, and constant voltage charging
- Battery thermal protection
- Discharge current limitation
- 1.8– 3.0 V, 150 mA step-down buck regulator
- Automatic transition between hysteretic and PWM modes
- Forced PWM mode for clean power operation
- Input regulator with USB compatible current limit of 100 mA and 500 mA
- 4.1–6.7 V input voltage range for normal operation
- LED drivers for charger state indication
- 2.3–4.35 V battery operating input range
- Replacing the battery with an incorrect battery type can cause a fire or explosion.
- Disposing the battery into a fire or hot oven, crushing it mechanically, or cutting it can cause an explosion.
- Leaving the battery in an environment with an extremely high temperature can cause an explosion or the leakage of flammable liquid or gas.
- Subjecting the battery to extremely low air pressure can cause an explosion or the leakage of flammable liquid or gas.
The Nordic Thingy:53 shall not be operated outside the internal battery’s discharge temperature range between –20°C and +60°C or stored or transported outside the internal battery’s storage temperature range between –20°C and +30°C.