You can get a BBC micro:bit with Nordic SoC for $15
Not exactly $5, but not very expensive either
There's also a decent growing community around them
You've also got the nRF52 USB dongle which seems similar to those cheaper ESP32 kits, for around $10.
> and going past that requires a JTAG programmer
No, the official Nordic devkits comes with a built-in debugger. Same for micro:bit. It's just plain USB.
That said, I do think Nordic could be better at penetrating the hobbyist/student market. I think one problem is the lack of a combined BT/WiFi chip.
I think once Zephyr becomes more mature and there's more tutorials/guides around it, a good BT+Thread+WiFi solution from Nordic could become very popular. Zephyr is a bit hard to get into, but incredibly powerful once you get used to it.
> No, the official Nordic devkits comes with a built-in debugger. Same for micro:bit. It's just plain USB.
Right, the devkits can do this. If you want to go past that, like making your own PCB with a NRF52 on it you need JTAG, which is not a requirement for esp32.
Maybe the NRF52 has some sort of ROM serial loader that I've missed though.
It’s actually possible to use the debugger on the NRF dev kits to flash/debug custom PCBs with NRF chips. So a separate (more expensive) JTAG debugger is in fact not required.
Yes nrf dev boards have an on board j-link, and Nordic provides instructions on how to turn the board into a programmer. Their licensing with segger explicitly allows this as long as you use it for other Nordic devices. Much cheaper than a standalone j-link.
You've also got the nRF52 USB dongle which seems similar to those cheaper ESP32 kits, for around $10.
> and going past that requires a JTAG programmer
No, the official Nordic devkits comes with a built-in debugger. Same for micro:bit. It's just plain USB.
That said, I do think Nordic could be better at penetrating the hobbyist/student market. I think one problem is the lack of a combined BT/WiFi chip.
I think once Zephyr becomes more mature and there's more tutorials/guides around it, a good BT+Thread+WiFi solution from Nordic could become very popular. Zephyr is a bit hard to get into, but incredibly powerful once you get used to it.