MDBT50Q-CX Nordic nRF52840 Dongle Development Kit for Bluetooth Zigbee Thread (USB Type C/Open Bootloader Pre-Loaded) BT5.4 FCC IC CE Pre-Certified

Works as advertised, super compact and powerful

Solid nRF52840 dongle with the Open bootloader pre-loaded — DFU over USB with nrfutil, no J-Link needed. One trap cost me an afternoon and isn't documented anywhere: build for raytac_mdbt50q_cx_40_dongle/nrf52840, not nrf52840 dongle. The Nordic PCA10059 populates DC/DC inductors and its board config enables the DC/DC regulator; this Raytac module doesn't have them and uses LDO mode. Flash a PCA10059-targeted image here and it programs fine ("Device programmed"), then goes completely silent — no LED, no USB, no error anywhere. It looks bricked. It isn't: press RESET and the bootloader comes back every time. The tell is that USB goes silent including the bootloader — that means control reached your app and it died, so stop debugging the flash and check your board target. With the right one it came up immediately as a Zephyr HCI controller and scanned 20 devices on first try.

This nRF52840 board has worked flawlessly in my setup so far. It has been a useful compact option for development work, and it matched what I needed for a wireless project. I am giving four stars rather than five because I have not completed long-term testing of every supported feature. I plan to keep testing it in future projects and will update this review if anything changes.

Super impressed that you know it performs very well. It's easy to install. It's very durable. It was super affordable. It doesn't draw too much heat and I haven't had any point where it was like. Got unstable wattage where it could cause issues I think it's awesome

It take me 2 days to program this usb from scratch and understand the memory so : IYou might get value if you: Are willing to learn embedded programming / firmware building (C/C++, SDKs, flashing tools) and want a cheap entry to IoT / mesh / wireless projects. Are comfortable with occasional hardware tinkering (maybe soldering, debugging with J-Link or SWD) — or are willing to get such tools. Intend to run or use community / third-party firmware that’s already built for nRF52840 dongles (e.g. Thread/Zigbee gateways, custom BLE devices), so you don’t need to write code from scratch.

Seems to work just like the Nordic official BLE dongle.

Great product look forward to buying another one

Works as expected. Used it to flash Open Puck firmware to act as the receiver dongle for my Steam Controller.