Trying to develop a mesh connected system using multiple Thingy52

[Niranjan Pandian]

I am new to Nordic and BLE mesh connectivity. I have the following assumptions & queries, Please clarify if I am wrong.

1. Is it possible to implement BLE Mesh using Thing52? I found a project on GITHUB, I believe its possible.

2. What are the toolchains required? Segger embedded studio. do I need any other tools?

3. I believe I can program Thing 52 using a nrf52 DK. Will that be fine

4. Whats the difference between soft device and Mesh SDK? I read Soft device is the Communication Stack, I was in a thought that Mesh SDK is also a stack. 

5. Other than the Mesh SDK and Soft device(if required), we need nrf thingy SDK as well for the firmware.

Do I need any other resources or tools or SDK to implement BLE mesh in Thingy 52? 

[Sigurd]

Hi,

1. Yes, that is possible. The Thingy Mesh Demo v0.1 on Github is a good starting point.

 

2. See this page. You can find the latest version of nRF5x Command Line Tools here( Windows, Linux, OSX)

 

3. Yes, you can use the nRF52-DK to program the Thingy 52. The simplest way of connecting the Thingy to the nRF52 DK would be using a 10-pin 2x5 1.27 mm pitch cable, like this one.

 

4. Yes, these are two different stacks. All Mesh packet is handled by mesh stack, directly using the radio peripheral. The SoftDevice is currently only used for it's Timeslot API. But the BLE Softdevice can also be usefully, so that the device can do BLE if needed, such as advertising, beaconing, GATT connection etc.

 

5. Thingy 52 SDK can be found here.

[Niranjan Pandian]

Thank you Sigurd for you reply, It was helpful.

Last thing,

If I want to install/use thingy as BLE also, how do I program the Softdevice, is it a part of Thingy SDK?

[Sigurd]

Looks like the SoftDevice .hex file was not included in Thingy SDK version 2.1.0. The Thingy SDK 2.1.0 builds on SDK 13.1 and SoftDevice S132 v4.0.2. You can download SDK 13.1 from here, and you can then find the SoftDevice hex in the folder SDK13_1_folder\components\softdevice\s132\hex. You can use e.g. nrfjprog to program the SoftDevice, using the --program command. You can also use nRFgo Studio. See this page.

[Niranjan Pandian]

Thank you Sigurd, Just to confirm, I should use SDK 13.1 instead of Thingy SDK and Softdevice S132 v4.0.2. 

[Sigurd]

If you want to use any of the functionality and sensors that is available on the Thingy 52, you should use the Thingy SDK. The regular SDK 13.1 and the Thingy SDK both uses SoftDevice S132 v4.0.2. As mentioned earlier, the Thingy Mesh Demo v0.1 on Github is a good starting point.