When Asked at the Nordic Semi booth, How they stack up against the newcomers on the scene.
“Look, we’re building real products — not academic white papers.
nRF52’s been shipping in millions of secure devices for years.
Ones ‘spec sheet superiority’ doesn’t count if the SDK or OTA pipeline fails in the field.”
The nRF54L15 isn’t just a follow-up—it’s a generational leap
1. Security Vault Class B Certified
Hardware Root of Trust + Secure Key Storage
Arm PSA Certified + Full Lifecycle Security Secure Boot Secure Firmware Updates Secure Debug Lockout Encrypted Storage Tamper Detection This MCU ships with “Fort Knox baked in”
Translation for the peanut gallery: Built for medical, automotive, payment, and military-grade BLE devices
2. Dual-Core Powerhouse (Locked-Down Cortex-M33s)
Application Core: 128 MHz ARM Cortex-M33
Network Core: 64 MHz ARM Cortex-M33
TrustZone, MPU, and Secure Attribution Unit (SAU) support
Compare that to a single-core MG24… or ESP32 *. Sorry, dual core + TrustZone wins every time.
3. State-of-the-Art Crypto (Way Beyond nRF52)
AES-128/256
SHA-2
HMAC
ECDSA/ECDH
Asynchronous RSA (new!)
Full PUF support (Physically Unclonable Functions)
Not “future-proof” — it’s already ahead of its time.
4. BLE 5.4 + Ready for LE Audio, Encrypted Coded PHY, PA, LNA
the nRF54L15 is built for battery life like a camel in the desert.
DeepSleep: <0.6 µA
Tx at +10dBm: @ low mA range
Supports SLEEP + RADIO schedule with lowest latency in class
Battery life is measured in years, not months.
And it still boots in under 1ms.
6. Dev Ecosystem that Works
Full support in nRF Connect SDK (Zephyr-based)
Works with MCUBoot, TF-M, Matter, BLE Mesh
No Frankenstein SDKs or obscure toolchains
VS Code + RTT + power profiling out of the box
Contrast with “oh wait this example is for SDK version 3.1.4-beta with patch x9-28” nightmares from the competition. or Rug Pull Version 5 of ESP-IDF.
BONUS: nRF54L15 is the First in a Whole Family
Nordic isn’t done. This is just the lead horse.
The nRF54H20 is coming next. Multi-protocol RF + AI accelerator + 2MB RAM.
Summary:
The nRF54L15 isn’t competing, it’s replacing.
It’s for secure medical wearables, asset tracking, edge AI, BLE audio, and OTA-powered industrial sensors — not toy demos.
Multiprotocol support, advanced security, high efficiency
Strong RF performance
Integrated Wi-Fi and BLE
Integrated BLE and Zigbee
Open Source or Proprietary?
nRF52:
Mainline Zephyr SDK support
MCUboot
No vendor lock
GitHub active
BLE/802.15.4/Zigbee certs already out in the wild
Next-Gen RF Capabilities
BLE 5.4 + Direction Finding + Periodic Advertising with Response (PAwR)
→ Enhanced multi-node communication, ideal for secure tags, asset tracking, etc.
Up to +10 dBm TX, ultra-low noise RX
→ Long-range, reliable — perfect for secure perimeter BLE or low-power mesh nodes.
ALL THIS already BAKED IN!
More Demo’s are in the works!
Yes, but ESP32 is still inside, what, 80% of all the devices out there? I guess it is just because it has Wi-Fi. Not arguing the Nordic quality, but still, it is not THAT popular as I understand.
that “80% of devices use ESP” claim floats around a lot in forums, but it’s a misleading generalization.
Let’s unpack it properly:
Well that’s ONLY true-ish in certain device categories. The recent IOT explosion has it fast,cheap & many. YMMV
Without ROSE colored glasses,
Real Market Data (2023–2024)
Nordic Semiconductor:
~43% of all BLE product certifications
Ships 2 million BLE SoCs per day
Espressif:
Ships ~40 million chips per quarter (including Wi-Fi focused chips like ESP32, ESP32-S3, ESP32-C3)
Strong presence in Wi-Fi MCU space, not BLE
Reality Check Across Use Cases
Use Case
Who Dominates?
BLE-only wearables/sensors
Nordic (nRF)
Wi-Fi-only smart plugs/toys
Espressif (ESP8266/ESP32)
Enterprise BLE devices
Nordic / Dialog / TI
Bluetooth LE Audio / LR / AoA
Nordic (nRF5340, nRF54 series)
Industrial/medical BLE
Nordic / Silicon Labs / TI
If BLE is your primary focus (e.g., secure, power-efficient, reliable BLE device), Nordic is unmatched.
If you need Wi-Fi with light BLE or BLE is secondary (e.g., config/setup), ESP32 works, but not as refined.
Feature
Nordic (nRF)
Espressif (ESP32)
BLE Stack
Certified, stable
Open-source, unstable under stress
Power Consumption
Ultra low-power
Higher, not BLE-optimized
BLE Range/Performance
Long Range, Coded PHY
Moderate
WiFi + BLE Coexistence
Yes (nRF5340 + nRF7002)
Yes (ESP32 series)
Audio (LE Audio)
Ready (nRF5340)
Not yet supported
Best Use Case
BLE peripherals, IoT tags, wearables
Smart home hubs, displays, Wi-Fi apps
Bottom Line
The “80% ESP” stat is true only in certain product categories (e.g. Wi-Fi-based smart home gadgets, low-cost IoT).
But in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Nordic owns the top spot — both in certified product count and industrial adoption.
Having been in both FABs there is no doubt in my mind where the better choice is. Nordic has always had a Technology Road map, always led. Espressif not so much… I guess one could say the iterations of the same thing, slightly reworked and NOT necessarily better than the predecessor might count? it’s all about to be moot IMO.
the 54 Series is going to be even better than anything in the space. Also after that the SOC planned for more MML and LLM capabilities and even more Memory of LOCAL LLM … hang on to your HAT
When Asked at the Nordic Semi booth, How they stack up against the newcomers on the scene.
1. Security Vault Class B CertifiedSecure Boot
This MCU ships with “Fort Knox baked in”
Translation for the peanut gallery: Built for medical, automotive, payment, and military-grade BLE devices
2. Dual-Core Powerhouse (Locked-Down Cortex-M33s)Sorry, dual core + TrustZone wins every time.
3. State-of-the-Art Crypto (Way Beyond nRF52)
4. BLE 5.4 + Ready for LE Audio, Encrypted Coded PHY, PA, LNA
5. Insanely Efficient Power Draw
6. Dev Ecosystem that Works
BONUS: nRF54L15 is the First in a Whole Family
PJ 
Comparison with Other BLE SoCs
Mainline Zephyr SDK support
Next-Gen RF Capabilities
already BAKED IN! 
