Embedded World North America took place in Anaheim, California from November 4-6, 2025. With more than 20 years of history in Europe, Embedded World is known for its strong technical focus and participation across automotive electronics, AI, industrial control, IoT, and medical technology. According to Chad Cox from Embedded Computing, NürnbergMesse North America reported nearly 3,800 attendees at the show, a 15% increase over 2024, along with 266 exhibitors, representing 30% growth over last year’s event in Austin, Texas.
Embedded World Conference
This year’s embedded world conference included several Zephyr-related technical sessions. Aaron Bauch from IAR presented “Multitasking Safety-Critical Applications with Zephyr RTOS: Bridging Open Source and Industrial Integration,” covering approaches to using Zephyr in safety-critical multitasking environments and how open source and industrial workflows intersect. Luis Ramirez-Vargas from Northern.tech (Mender.io) presented “Bringing Robust OTA Updates to Zephyr: Real World Insights and Approaches,” describing practical OTA strategies and lessons learned from deploying updates in production environments. Mohammed Billoo from MAB Labs delivered “Contributing to Zephyr: How To Write and Contribute a Device Driver,” explaining contribution processes as well as the steps required to develop and submit a Zephyr device driver upstream.
Zephyr Project Meetup – November 5, 2025
The Zephyr Project meetup at Anaheim was held on November 5 from 5:00–7:30 pm in Room 213D at the Anaheim Convention Center. Sponsored by Antmicro and Qt with board giveaways from Infineon, NXP, and Renesas, the meetup featured presentations focused on ongoing work in the Zephyr ecosystem.
The event opened with a short welcome from Prof. Dr-Ing Axel Sikora, followed by Kate Stewart from the Linux Foundation, who delivered the State of the Zephyr Project. She shared updates on what is new in Zephyr, how the community is evolving, and what to expect in upcoming months. Luca Bartolomeo from Renesas then presented “Zephyr on Renesas MCU/MPU offerings,” describing Zephyr support across the RA, RX, and RZ families. His session outlined Renesas’ goal of supplying a comprehensive, lightweight Zephyr kernel and supporting services that remain portable, secure, fully integrated, configurable, and modular.
Afterward, Brendon from NXP delivered “Enhancing Bluetooth Audio in Zephyr: Bringing Bluetooth Classic to the party.” His talk explained the work underway to add Bluetooth Classic audio support, current feature status, plans for an A2DP end-to-end audio example, and efforts to expand CI/CV coverage to improve compliance and robustness. Luis Ubieda from Croxel followed with “How contributing to Zephyr and OSS makes sense for IoT development teams,” discussing why Croxel participates in the Zephyr community and how upstream involvement benefits their IoT products.
Cédric LE DILLAU from Qt Group then presented “How to Build Stunning Embedded UIs with Zephyr,” demonstrating Qt for MCUs running on Zephyr, building a GUI alongside MQTT, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi connectivity, and using Squish automated testing to validate embedded graphical interfaces. The final technical session, presented by Michael Gielda of Antmicro, was “Zephyr AI development made easier: Zephelin Profiling Library, Trace Viewer and AutoML.” He introduced three open-source tools developed with Analog Devices: an AutoML flow using Antmicro’s Kenning framework; the Zephelin Profiling Library for tracking AI application execution and system state; and the Zephelin Trace Viewer for collecting and visualizing AI trace data. The meetup concluded with networking time, giving attendees an opportunity to continue discussions and connect with speakers and other community members.
IoT Stars – November 4, 2025
On the evening before the meetup, Kate Stewart (Linux Foundation) also participated in the IoT Stars networking event, held on November 4 in Anaheim. The event focused on IoT, EdgeAI, and Embedded Computing and included dinner and networking for IoT Stars members. The theme for 2025 was “The Playbook to Modernize Your Embedded Stack,” emphasizing updated approaches for embedded and IoT development.
Kate took part in the panel “The EdgeAI Playbook,” alongside Zach Shelby (Edge Impulse) and Jim Beneke (Tria), moderated by Ed Doran from the Edge AI Foundation. The session centered on practical considerations for EdgeAI development and embedded systems design.
Interview with Charbax at Embedded World North America
During the conference, Kate Stewart was also interviewed by Charbax, discussing Zephyr’s current progress, ecosystem activity, and community direction. Watch the session here.
In Conclusion
Across the Embedded World North America conference sessions, the Zephyr Project meetup, and the IoT Stars panel Zephyr maintained a clear presence throughout the week in Anaheim. The talks, meetups, and discussions highlighted current work on Bluetooth audio, AI tooling, safety-critical use cases, OTA strategies, UI frameworks, and contribution workflows.
About the Community Meetups:
This meetup is part of the Zephyr Community Meetup Series, gatherings hosted by community members, with support from the Zephyr Project.
If you are excited about the Zephyr Project and want to share it with your local community, consider hosting an event in your city. Whether you are in Anaheim or halfway across the globe, we encourage passionate individuals to get involved. Reach out to us and explore how you can bring Zephyr to your community and make a difference in the world of IoT development.
To keep up to date about the project, subscribe to the Zephyr quarterly newsletter or connect with us on @ZephyrIoT, Zephyr Project LinkedIn or the Zephyr Discord Channel to talk with community and TSC members.