FYI: a developer begun porting ESPHome to nrf52 for nRF52840 as well as started development on a Zigbee component for ESPHome based on ZBOSS

[Hedda]

Off-topic but FYI; @tomaszduda23 has started working on an initial (basic) port of ESPHome for nRF Connect / nRF5 SDK (for nRF52840) as well as Zigbee support (for nRF) on that platform. See these pull requests:

• [nrf52, core] nrf52 core based on zephyr esphome/esphome#7049

  • [nrf52, zigbee] zigbee binary_sensor, switch, time, sensor and number esphome/esphome#7340

He is currently developing most of it in his "nrf52" branch and "nrf52_zigbee" branches his fork of ESPHome:

https://github.com/tomaszduda23/esphome/tree/nrf52

https://github.com/tomaszduda23/esphome/tree/nrf52_zigbee

Related as he made short a post informing about this in ESPHome's feature request discussion for Zigbee and Thread support:

esphome/feature-requests#1397 (comment)

"I've started porting esphome to nRF52840 a few weeks ago esphome/esphome#6075. It can be used with nrf-sdk which has some zigbee examples https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrf/tree/main/samples/zigbee. I've not looked in zigbee details. Maybe someone would be interested though."

That development effort might also be an interesting sub-project to follow for those who (like myself) have been asking for Zigbee (and Thread) support in ESPHome (and perhaps posted in the feature request tracker) since Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 does not support WiFi but does support both Zigbee and Thread protocols, (similar to the ESP32-H2).

[Hedda]

@ffenix113 still off-topic but another indirectly related FYI; @tomaszduda23 has now created a Zigbee proof-of-concept for ESPHome on nRF52840 with YAML config here -> tomaszduda23/esphome#2

[Hedda]

@ ffenix113 FYI, the same developer have now submitted a PR for initialZigbee support to ESPHome

• [nrf52, zigbee] zigbee binary_sensor, switch, time, sensor and number esphome/esphome#7340

That in turn require his PR to add nRF52 support to Zephyr for ESPHome:

• [nrf52, core] nrf52 core based on zephyr esphome/esphome#7049

[Hedda]

FYI, tomaszduda23 keep making great progress towards the path to add both nrf52 platform core (based on Zephyr) and Zigbee for nRF to the ESPHome firmware (developed for the nRF52840 MCU SoC chip):

• [nrf52, zigbee] zigbee binary_sensor, switch, time, sensor and number esphome/esphome#7340

• [nrf52, core] nrf52 core based on zephyr esphome/esphome#7049

That custom nrf52 platform be an external component:

• [core] add support for custom platform esphome/esphome#7616

PS: His previous Zigbee proof-of-concept example for ESPHome on nRF52840 with YAML config for reference here:

• Zigbee tomaszduda23/esphome#2

[Hedda]

@ffenix113 FYI, initial pull requests for nrf52 core (based on zephyr) from tomaszduda23 has now been merged into ESPHome dev branch:

• [nrf52, core] nrf52 core based on zephyr esphome/esphome#7049

plus many more new related nrf52 patches are in development now that the initial support has been added and will soon be in the mainline:

• https://github.com/esphome/esphome/pulls?q=is%3Apr+nrf52+

Again more revevant is that an initial pull request for Zigbee support on nrf52 for ESPHome is now also getting close to being merged soon:

• [nrf52, zigbee] zigbee binary_sensor, switch, time, sensor and number esphome/esphome#7340

PS: Also noted that luar123 has begun working on an external low-level Zigbee component support for ESPHome on Espressif ESP32 as well:

• https://github.com/luar123/zigbee_esphome

[Hedda]

@ffenix113 FYI, ESPHome 2025.8.0 release from the 20th of August 2025 has now added official support for nRF52 as a new platform:

• https://esphome.io/changelog/2025.8.0.html

This means that there is now native support in ESPHome for nRF52840 boards (based on Zephyr), and while it is still early it is a great start:

• https://esphome.io/components/nrf52

Note though that Zigbee is still not support in mainline but can be tested via his fork or by loading it as external component for ESPHome:

• [nrf52, zigbee] zigbee binary_sensor, switch, time, sensor and number esphome/esphome#7340

  • https://github.com/tomaszduda23/esphome/tree/nrf52_zigbee

It currenly requires an Adafruit bootloader (example adafruit_nrf52_sd140_v6 or adafruit_itsybitsy_nrf52840 depending on board used).

NRF52 Platform Support

ESPHome 2025.8.0 introduces basic support for Nordic nRF52 series microcontrollers through the new NRF52 Platform platform. This implementation is built on the Zephyr RTOS, providing a robust foundation for Nordic semiconductor devices.

Key Features:

• Complete platform integration with ESPHome’s component ecosystem
• ADC support for analog sensor reading with configurable resolution
• GPIO functionality with interrupt support and pin configuration
• Zephyr debug component for advanced debugging and development

The nRF52 platform opens up new possibilities for low-power, Bluetooth-enabled devices while maintaining the familiar ESPHome configuration syntax and component compatibility.

---

This is a lead up to that this pull requestsfor initial Zigbee device support has been submitted to the upstream ESPHome firmware repo:

• [nrf52, zigbee] zigbee binary_sensor, switch, time, sensor and number esphome/esphome#7340

As well as many other related pull requests that adds an underlying framework or more extensive debugging support for nRF52 and Zephyr:

• [nrf52] add dfu esphome/esphome#9319
• [nrf52, zephyr_debug] add zephyr debug component esphome/esphome#8319
• [nrf52, debug] debug component for nrf52 esphome/esphome#8315
• [ci, nrf52] make zephyr clang mandatory esphome/esphome#8992
• [clang] clang tidy support with zephyr esphome/esphome#8352
• [nrf52, core] unified way how all platforms handle SplitDefault esphome/esphome#7715
• [core, dashboard] load external component to get get_download_types esphome/esphome#8139
• [core] make upload_program more generic esphome/esphome#8321
• [core] make require_framework_version generic esphome/esphome#8412
• [nrf52, i2c] i2c support for nrf52 esphome/esphome#8150
• [nrf52,ota] add cdc and ble ota esphome/esphome#9859
• [nrf52,gpio] add gpio levels for high voltage mode esphome/esphome#9858
• [nrf52,deep_sleep] basic support for sleep esphome/esphome#9864
• [nrf52] add more tests esphome/esphome#10591
• [nrf52] add more tests esphome/esphome#10694
• [nrf52] add more tests esphome/esphome#10695

---

PS: Again. there is also another developer working on Zigbee support for ESHome on ESP32 platform as well so will see if both gets merged:

• https://github.com/luar123/zigbee_esphome

[Hedda]

Update: ESPHome 2025.9.0 contains enhancements to their nRF52 platform, adding new capabilities and bug-fixes + more tests:

• https://esphome.io/changelog/2025.9.0/

  • https://esphome.io/components/nrf52/

FYI, tomaszduda23 also continues to refine his pull request to add Zigbee support for the nRF52 platform in ESPHome:

• [nrf52, zigbee] zigbee binary_sensor, switch, time, sensor and number esphome/esphome#7340

(That PR currently supports Zigbee binary sensor, switch, time, sensor, and number as ESPHome device types).

He has mentioned that he is currently not planing to implement any others clusters but said that PRs are welcome though:

• https://github.com/tomaszduda23/esphome/tree/nrf52_zigbee

PS: Perhaps also relevant is that the next ESPHome version should make it easier to use arduino as an idf component:

• [esp32] Use arduino as an idf component esphome/esphome#10647

(ESPHome 2025.10.0 will have breaking changes migrating ESP32 Arduino framework to use Arduino as an ESP-IDF component).