Connect to 21 peripherals

[Brian]

I have an application that requires talking to 21 sensors wirelessly.  The bandwidth required by each sensor is relatively small - roughly 2KB/sec.  The sensors need to talk to a host computer running Windows.  The sensors and the host computer are all relatively close to each other - all within 10 meters.  Do any Nordic devices meet these requirements?  Will any of the BLE devices support 21 peripherals?

Thanks!

[Matt]

For nRF52832 with  S132 SoftDevice v5.1.0 (http://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.nordic.infocenter.nrf52%2Fdita%2Fnrf52%2Fdevelopment%2Fnrf52840_pdk%2Fintro.html) you should be able to do 20 connections (http://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/pdf/S132_SDS_v5.1.pdf)

[Brian]

I saw that the nRF52 could connect 20 peripherals, but I need to connect 21.  Is there any way around the limit of 20, or is there another device besides the nRF52 that would allow 21 connections?  Or is my only option to use WiFi?

[Turbo J]

Two KByte/sec is not "small" in terms of BLE. You probably need multiple radios on the host side - which windows does not support directly (at least for bluetooth). One possible solution would be using 4 nRF52832 chips in central mode connected via USB2UART chip (e.g. FT4232H).

[Brian]

Thanks for the response!  I think wi-fi may be my best bet for this situation.

[Brian]

I've been reading about Bluetooth mesh.  Is there any reason a Bluetooth mesh network of sensors would not meet these requirements?  It looks like Bluetooth 5 can support a data rate of ~1.4 Mbps, and the mesh capabilities can handle the 21 connections.  Are there other considerations to using Bluetooth mesh that I'm overlooking?  Would the nRF5 SDK for Mesh support development with these requirements?