DFU over Bluetooth Low Energy

This DFU method uses a Development Kit (DK) compatible with the nRF5 SDK as the connectivity device for the Device Firmware Update (DFU) over Bluetooth® Low Energy.

Note

For this procedure, you can use the following Nordic Semiconductor devices as connectivity devices: nRF52 DK (PCA10040), nRF52840 DK (PCA10056), nRF52840 Dongle (PCA10059), nRF51 Development Kit (PCA10028), and nRF51 Dongle (PCA10031).

You can run the nrfutil nrf5sdk-tools dfu ble command to perform this update, together with appropriate options for your setup. To see the list of options, run the nrfutil nrf5sdk-tools dfu ble --help command.

Related nRF5 SDK documentation

Bootloader and DFU modules
Bluetooth LE Secure DFU Bootloader example
Zigbee OTA Upgrade Server Example with image transfer over BLE in the nRF5 SDK for Thread and Zigbee documentation

Complete the following steps to do the DFU:

Connect the connectivity device to your computer.
Run nrfutil device erase --all to erase the contents of the the connectivity device.
Run nrfutil nrf5sdk-tools dfu ble with appropriate options to perform a full DFU over Bluetooth Low Energy.

For example:
```
nrfutil nrf5sdk-tools dfu ble --package app_dfu_package.zip --conn-ic-id NRF52 --port COM3 --name "MyDevice" --flash_connectivity
```
In this command:
- --package specifies the package to be transferred using the connectivity device.
- --conn-ic-id specifies that the connectivity device contains the nRF52 SoC.
- --port specifies the port to which the the connectivity device is connected.
- --name specifies the name of the remote Bluetooth Low Energy device that is being upgraded.
- --flash_connectivity overwrites the firmware of the connectivity device. It is disabled by default.