Connectionless BLE Mesh setup using advertising channel

[Senchoi]

I'm trying to make a custom Mesh system using ADV channel to exchange data and dynamically intermittently scan to receive them.

Is it possible to have a few shots of TX - broadcasting for flooding and turn on and off scan in the way I like?

I'm going through the library and I have a feeling that such function isn't really open to library users.

I'm currently using nRF connect SDK toolchain v2.5.0.

[Simonr]

Hi

I'm not sure Bluetooth Mesh might be the best solution for you, as you mention things that require a level of control over the radio that I don't think the Mesh specification will allow you.

Can you try to explain what your end goal for your application is, and we'll try to find the best possible solution to achieve what you want? Are you planning on a big network with multiple nodes, or a smaller one, and what do you need the dynamic data exchanges for, as this is not what Bluetooth Mesh is designed for really.

I guess what you could do in order to exchange data over an advertising channel could be to deinitialize the Mesh stack entirely and use normal BLE advertisements for this purpose before reiniting Mesh and going back to being "a regular node".

Best regards,

Simon

[Senchoi]

My goal was to implement BMADS which is a flooding adv network using dynamic scanning only when there's data to send through mesh. It usually scans intermittently and when there's data to be sent, it switches to simultaneous adv and extended scanning mode and push other nodes to do longer scanning to receive the data.

I had a look on nordic library and tried some things. I reached a conclusion it can't be done unless I have a control over softdevice or hardware is not designed for it.

BLE cannot simultaneously scan and advertise so the device has to switch immediately between two modes. But this is blocked in the Nordic SDK or zephyr or mbed OS, etc.

[Simonr]

Hi

If I understand you correctly what you describe would require 2 antennas/radio peripherals, as Mesh applications generally require the radio to be on all the time. To turn off the radio at some points to use the "normal" BLE stack, you need to deinitialize the Mesh stack or make it an LPN.

Best regards,

Simon