Mesh Library suitable for testautomation

[Thomas Henle]

Hello,

we want to setup an environment for automated testing of our bluetooth mesh system.

The test system should be able to provision and communicate over a device that has already implemented gatt and mesh bearer (proxy node).

We already have a working python implementation of a gatt client.

Our target devices offer a mesh proxy service.

Usually we import librarys (C, C++, C#) into python and build python wrappers.

Is there a library like "Android-nRF-Mesh-Library" to be used with python under Linux and/or Windows?

Thank you in advance

Thomas

[tesc]

Hi,

Although not intended for automation, there is in nRF Connect SDK the Bluetooth Mesh Shell, which lets you test and explore the Bluetooth Mesh functionality of a DK (or other compatible board) connected to the PC, including communicating with (and even provisioning) other boards.

Regarding a Bluetooth Mesh stack for Linux or Windows, to wrap in python, I am afraid I am not aware of any, unless you find the Shell sample mentioned above to suffice.

Regards,
Terje

[EAB]

Not that you would care what i think. 
But leaving out the Python world from using your products is really a development killer. 
3 years ago you were using python a lot. Today not. Everybody want to automate, and TS is not the way.

[tesc]

Hi,

Thank you for your feedback. While we cannot deliver on every wish, we do care what developers think, and your comments are therefore highly appreciated. Understanding what is needed is important to us.

While it is true that our serialization library for BLE, with its Python wrappers, has been in maintenance mode and with no new features for several years, we never had a Bluetooth Mesh stack on top of that. In the world of Bluetooth, there has been a development in the general community towards more tools, with more features, and in that context we see that the benefit of us providing a dedicated PC side stack is becoming more and more limited. For a professional PC side Bluetooth stack we recommend BTstack from BlueKitchen GmbH, which we use ourselves for PC side tooling.

Nevertheless, I take your message about the benefits of Python libraries for interacting with BLE devices, for the purpose of automation in development and testing. We will keep that in mind, and see if this is an area where we could and should add more value moving forward.

Regards,
Terje

[Thomas Henle]

Hi Terje,

thank you for your response.

What I'm thinking of is a "hardware agnostic" mesh stack.

It could be written in C/C++, not necessarily in python.

As I wrote we already have an implementation of a generic GATT client suitable for windows and linux.

We want to do the provisioning and mesh communication through a mesh proxy service offered by our ble mesh devices.

Actually we can test our system only by an app (android/ios) that we got developed by an external partner. So doing regression tests is kind of pain ;)

Thank you!

KRgs

Thomas

[tesc]

Hi,

There are some hints and tips in the SDK documentation, regarding how to test your application and devices, albeit a bit spread out.

The Tools section of the Zephyr part of the documentation describes both mobile applications and PC side emulation of Zephyr / nRF Connect SDK projects (e.g. QEMU), as well as Bluez (native BLE stack for Linux). It even mentions emulating Android applications on the PC.

Then there is some information in the testing section, which also mentions use of BabbleSim.

From what I understand, the qualification of the Mesh stack for Zephyr (i.e. pure Zephyr, not nRF Connect SDK), is done through running the Mesh+Host (from Zephyr) on a PC.

So yes, there are solutions out there, probably several, but without us having the full overview.

Regards,
Terje