The ArduinoCore-zephyr 0.90.0 release marks a big shift in the Arduino ecosystem: the Zephyr-based core is now officially stable and no longer in beta. This is the new primary framework for advanced Arduino boards, while the legacy mbedOS-based cores enter their deprecation phase as mbedOS itself reaches End of Life.
New boards and hardware features
Version 0.90.0 significantly expands hardware support:
- Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect – now officially supported. You can run Zephyr RTOS on RP2040 while keeping full Arduino API compatibility.
- Portenta H7 and Portenta C33 – now have native SD card support, making it straightforward to log data or host local files on external memory.
- Nano 33 BLE – gains official PDM library support, enabling digital microphone input for audio sampling, noise detection, and edge AI voice applications.
Universal automatic loader sync
With 0.90.0, automatic loader-and-sketch synchronization is enabled across all supported boards. On every upload, the core checks the loader version and updates it behind the scenes if required. In practice, you can:
- plug in a board currently running an mbedOS-based sketch,
- switch that board to the new Zephyr core in the Arduino IDE,
- hit Upload – the IDE will transparently update the loader to a Zephyr-compatible version.
Supported hardware list
The stable Zephyr core currently supports:
- Arduino UNO Q
- Portenta H7, Portenta C33
- Arduino Opta microPLC
- Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi
- Nano Matter, Nano RP2040 Connect, Nano 33 BLE
- Arduino Nicla Sense ME, Nicla Vision
To get started, open Board Manager in the Arduino IDE, search for zephyr, and install ArduinoCore-zephyr 0.90.0. Check the GitHub release notes for full details and to report any issues you hit while porting your sketches.
Source: blog.arduino.cc
