Provisioning nRF51 DK and nRF51 DOngle

[Ri23]

Hello, 

I am completely new to creating a Bluetooth mesh network and nRF5 devices. I have three nRF51 DK and 2 nRF51 dongles. I have earlier read the posts and made nRF51 (1 device) and nRF51 dongle (1 device) communicate with each other by sending some hex values using Termite, master Control Panel, Nrf Studio. 

My questions are

1. How can I create a wireless mesh network with three nrf51 DK and 2 nRF51 dongles ? How Can I provision the devices ? 

2. Is there intense programming required ? 

3. How many days/months will it take to provision the above mentioned devices and create a mesh network ? 

your advice would greatly be appreciated. 

Kindly let me know

Thank you

Ri

[Hung Bui]

You can use our mesh SDK v1.0.1 and test using our light switch example. It wouldn't take more than an hour to set everything up. The provisioning part is done automatically in the code. 

But be aware that we don't continue development with NRF51, and from nRFMesh SDK v2.0 and up, we only support nRF52. 

[Ri23]

Thank you for the reply. Is nRF51 not suitable for development (Mesh network) ? Sorry for asking basic questions as I am completely new to this. And therefore, wanted to have a clear picture. 

[Hung Bui]

Regarding the computational power and the requirement of flash and RAM, it's not really the best to start your development with the nRF51. We would strongly suggest you to start with NRF52832 or nRF52840. For a lower cost solution, the nRF52810 is an option. It would be supported in the future.