adafruit-nrfutil is a Python package that includes the adafruit-nrfutil command line utility and the nordicsemi library.

This package is derived from the Nordic Semiconductor ASA package pc-nrfutil, version 0.5.3. The code has been converted from Python 2 to Python 3.

The executable nrfutil has been renamed to adafruit-nrfutil to distinguish it from the original executable.

This tool can be used with the Adafruit nRF52 Feather to flash firmware images onto the device using the simple serial port.

This library is written for Python 3.5+. It is no longer Python 2 compatible!

• Python3
• pip3

Run the following commands to make adafruit-nrfutil available from the command line or to development platforms like the Arduino IDE or CircuitPython:

This is recommended method, to install latest version

$ pip3 install --user adafruit-nrfutil

Use this method if you have issue installing with PyPi or want to modify the tool. First clone this repo and go into its folder.

$ git clone https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_nRF52_nrfutil.git
$ cd Adafruit_nRF52_nrfutil

Note: following commands use python3, however if you are on Windows, you may need to change it to python since windows installation of python 3.x still uses the name python.exe

To install in user space in your home directory:

$ pip3 install -r requirements.txt
$ python3 setup.py install

If you get permission errors when running pip3 install, your pip3 is older or is set to try to install in the system directories. In that case use the --user flag:

$ pip3 install -r --user requirements.txt
$ python3 setup.py install

If you want to install in system directories (generally not recommended):

$ sudo pip3 install -r requirements.txt
$ sudo python3 setup.py install

To generate a self-contained executable binary of the utility (Windows and MacOS), run these commands:

pip3 install pyinstaller
cd Adafruit_nRF52_nrfutil
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
cd Adafruit_nRF52_nrfutil\nordicsemi
pyinstaller __main__.py --onefile --clean --name adafruit-nrfutil

You will find the .exe in Adafruit_nRF52_nrfutil\nordicsemi\dist\adafruit-nrfutil ( with .exe if you are on windows). Copy or move it elsewhere for your convenience, such as directory in your %PATH%.

To get info on the usage of adafruit-nrfutil:

adafruit-nrfutil --help

To convert an nRF52 .hex file into a DFU pkg file that the serial bootloader can make use of:

adafruit-nrfutil dfu genpkg --dev-type 0x0052 --application firmware.hex dfu-package.zip

To flash a DFU pkg file over serial:

adafruit-nrfutil dfu serial --package dfu-package.zip -p /dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART -b 115200