NRF52840 OpenThread Support
Are there any plans to support OpenThread on the NRF52840 chip?
There are 2 different Mesh networking technologies natively built for this chip.
Both the nrf52832 and nrf52840 support Bluetooth5 Mesh but only the 840 supports thread.
Personally thread support would be my first choice and I wish I knew where to begin exposing the api to upython. I've played around with OpenThread on the nrf52840 development boards and was very impressed.
I know pycom got openthread working with micropython through a LORA network but supporting the proper radio would be awesome.
https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/nRF52840
https://openthread.io/
https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/nRF5-SDK-for-Thread
ports/nrf/boards/SUPERMINI_NRF52840 board definition + machine_bitstream.
The Supermini NRF52840 is a clone of the NiceNano board based on the Pro Micro layout. The board definition includes a machine_bitstream driver to drive NeoPixel leds.
Summary
the Supermini NRF52840 is a quite popular and affordable board available from various resellers in Asia / Europe / US.
The board definition has been extended to work for Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express
as well. I added machine.bitstream for nrf52 to be able to drive Neopixel LEDs . The machine_bitstream.c code is based on machine_bitstream of stm32 and w600 port and was adopted for the nrf52840. The driver should work with any nrf52 board (confirmed to work on a Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express). The bitstream driver is includes here but can extract it to be used with other nrf52 series boards.
Testing
I tested basic functionality of the board. The neopixel driver was tested with a bunch of Neopixel LEDs/ LED matrix and the timing verified with a simple logic analyzer.
Trade-offs and Alternatives
Please let me know if I have overseen any trade-offs.