Nordic Semiconductor nRF
Shares rank 20 of 28 microcontrollers by recommenders
People recommend Nordic's nRF chips for low-power Bluetooth LE devices, citing good Bluetooth support, documentation and a solid track record. The most common caveat is that they are a bit expensive.
People recommend Nordic's nRF chips for low-power Bluetooth LE devices, citing good Bluetooth support, documentation and a solid track record. The most common caveat is that they are a bit expensive.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good for simple low-power BLE devices
“BLE without Wi-Fi (Or ANTD): Nordic. Also a good choice in general for simple devices”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Adafruit: Arduino’s Rules Are ‘Incompatible With Open Source’” “nRF for low power stuff are far less effort these days”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “SDCC – Small Device C Compiler”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Somewhat expensive
“Nordic stuff looks pretty sweet but is generally a bit expensive.”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “Embassy: Modern embedded framework, using Rust and async”
Other microcontrollers people recommend
The four most recommended other microcontrollers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ESP32 | 190 | 35 | 84% | 12 | 5 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| Arduino boards | 81 | 73 | 53% | 12 | 16 yrs7 owners | — |
| Raspberry Pi Pico | 72 | 16 | 82% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Raspberry Pi RP2350 | 47 | 13 | 78% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Nordic Semiconductor nRFThis page | 7 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“nRF for low power stuff are far less effort these days”
“Nordic has a good track record”
“They were super smol even when I was using em almost a decade ago.”
“really well documented and have very good support for the Bluetooth side of things in embassy”
“Nordic stuff looks pretty sweet but is generally a bit expensive.”
“BLE without Wi-Fi (Or ANTD): Nordic. Also a good choice in general for simple devices”
“That's almost all-in Nordic for me.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.