Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America 2026

Zephyr’s build-time configuration excels at efficiency, but challenges mass production. When a single product design needs to support dozens of hardware variations, e.g. swapping out sensors or chargers due to supply chain constraints, the standard build flow often leads to managing a unique binary for every combination. This creates a validation nightmare.

This talk presents an architectural framework used in the ChromeOS Embedded Controller that brings runtime adaptability to Zephyr, achieving Linux-like flexibility without the memory overhead of a live DTB parser.

We cover two specific patterns:
1. Dynamic Driver Selection: We treat the Devicetree as a pool of supported components. By reading a configuration bitfield from manufacturing data (EEPROM or protected flash) at boot, the firmware dynamically initializes only the correct drivers for that specific unit.

2. Safe Hardware Discovery: Zephyr compiles away hardware descriptions, leaving the host OS blind to connected peripherals. We introduce a pipeline that exports Devicetree definitions into a "Component Manifest". This enables safe OS-level verification, avoiding the risks of "blind probing" on I2C buses.