makerdiary nRF52840-MDK USB Dongle
Open-source multi-protocol wireless USB dongle based on the Nordic nRF52840 SoC. Supports BLE 5.4, Thread, Zigbee, 802.15.4, NFC, and USB 2.0 with UF2 drag-and-drop bootloader. Priced at $12.99.
$12.99
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Specifications
Components
ARM Cortex-M4F @ 64MHz with 256KB RAM, 1MB flash, BLE 5.4, Thread, Zigbee, 802.15.4, ANT, NFC-A, USB 2.0, and hardware crypto (RSA, ECC, AES, SHA-256). Deep sleep 0.3µA.
Integrated PCB chip antenna for 2.4 GHz wireless protocols (BLE, Thread, Zigbee, 802.15.4) with +8 dBm TX power
User-programmable RGB LED for status indication, connected to P0.22 (green), P0.23 (red), P0.24 (blue), active-low
Bus Interfaces
GPIO Map
Overview
The nRF52840-MDK USB Dongle is a small, low-cost, open-source wireless development tool from makerdiary built on the Nordic nRF52840 — one of the most versatile multi-protocol wireless SoCs available. At just $12.99, it packs BLE 5.4, Thread, Zigbee, 802.15.4, ANT, NFC, and USB 2.0 into a compact USB-A dongle form factor.
The dongle features a UF2 bootloader for drag-and-drop firmware flashing, an onboard 2.4 GHz chip antenna with +8 dBm TX power, a programmable RGB LED, and up to 12 GPIO pins exposed via breadboard-friendly castellated edge connectors. The nRF52840's CryptoCell-310 provides hardware-accelerated RSA, ECC, SHA-256, and AES operations.
It supports a wide range of development ecosystems including Zephyr RTOS, nRF Connect SDK, CircuitPython, MicroPython, TinyGo, and OpenSK (FIDO2 security key). Popular uses include BLE/802.15.4 packet sniffing with Wireshark, Thread/Zigbee network analysis, and IoT prototyping.
Use Cases
7Resources
Where to Buy
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