question about advertising

[Nils Minor]

Hi,

i have some more, for me fundamental, questions and i hope some one can help me :)

1.) can i use the advertise function whenever i want or only in connection interval ? And how big is the size of payload i can send by the advertising function? Will it be send on every of three advertising channels?

2.) how should i handle received advertising packets, with which interrupt or function? So would it be possible that to more or less beacons will communicate over advertising data, so one device sends advertising data and other receives and can react.

3.) Did i understand it correctly, beacon only means advertising with apple "rules"?

best regards,

Nils

[Stefan Birnir Sverrisson]

1. There is a thread here that addresses this

2. One peripheral can only be connected to one central each time. However, the new S110 v7.0 softdevice can be in peripheral role (connected with a central) and be a broadcaster at the same time.

3. I am not sure if I understand your question actually. With S120, the device is a central and it can scan advertising packets sent by a advertiser/broadcaster, and/or be in a connection with a peripheral. With S110 you can advertise/broadcast and/or be in a connection with a central device (peripheral role)

4. In your application, you can configure your advertising interval. The shorter the advertising interval, the more frequently the advertiser will send out advertising packets, the quicker it is discovered by central devices.

[Stefan Birnir Sverrisson]

What you are looking for is perhaps the upcoming BLE S130 softdevice. It will be capable of 3-link central + concurrent peripheral role. Having nodes as both central and peripheral enables BLE mesh network. However, your may consider as well to use the S130 as Observer+broadcaster, just as an idea.

The first S130 alpha release is scheduled for first week of July.