Ble Mesh Network for Building Automation

[Nydegger]

Hi

I'm really excited about Bluetooth 5 and Mesh Networking, but I'm not sure what DK to get.

I want to make Sensor Network for Building Automation. So I can read every Sensor at just one point of the builing and don't need a accesspoint every 15m.

All sensors would be powered by battery. with Temp, light etc. but also have buttons on them or ReadContacts.

Is this possible?  I don't really understand the Mesh Networking yet.

[Bjørn Kvaale]

Bluetooth Mesh is not really tailor fit for battery powered devices, as the radio must be on most of the time to be able to receive packets from other devices. If you want a low powered device, then Mesh specifies a low power node. The Nordic Mesh SDK does not yet support low power nodes, but we are working hard to implement low power nodes in our Mesh SDK.

If this is not an issue, I would recommend buying a couple of nrf52832 dev kits or some Nordic Thingy:52s. The advantage of the dev kit is that the mesh sdk examples work out of the box on the dev kits, while you would need to make a few changes to make it work on the Thingy:52 devices. The advantage of the Thingy:52 devices is that this device already has various sensors integrated. We also have a mesh demo for the Thingy:52 to get you started with Mesh on the Thingy:52.

Also, just want to point out that Bluetooth Mesh does not use Bluetooth 5.

[Nydegger]

What I need:

Some Beacons, that are battery powered and carry temp and light information.

My server needs to be able to read all beacons in the house.

What I've tried:

Setup some beacons with nRF51822. works creat. Except I need a device (like happybubble), that can read the beacons and sends the data to the Server, in almost every room.

Solution:

BLE 5 long range (nrf52840):

Beacons have a longer range and I just need 1 maby 2 BLE5/WIFI module, that reads all beacons in the house and sends the data to the server.

+ longer range of beacons

+ I don't need alot of relay nodes, that can't be battery powered

- I might need more than one BLE5/WIFI module

Mesh:

I can use beacons like this http://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.nordic.infocenter.meshsdk.v2.0.1%2Fmd_models_simple_on_off_README.html

and I need a nrf52832 as relay node in every room.

and only one BLE/WIFI module some where in the network to controll everything over wifi.

+ Closed system, it only needs one BLE/WIFI

- It's not longrange

- relay nodes can't be battery powered.

Conclusion:

Mesh is only better, if I would have some Bluetooth actors in every room. Because most actors do have a powersupply (like light, blinds...),  to build the mesh network.

But I only have sensors that needs to be battery powered.

So ble5 beacons are the better solution in this case?

[Bjørn Kvaale]

If you were to use bluetooth 5 long range, you could make long range beacons that sleep for most of the time & transmit sensor data every once in a while. You could most likely have one node that is connected via wifi to transmit the sensor data to the cloud per floor (maybe even have a wifi node every second floor). You would need to test to see if this would work. In this case, I would recommend you take a look at the multilink example from sdk 15.

Also, if you only have one wifi node (in the Bluetooth Mesh), you are very reliant on that node working all of the time. If that node were to not work for a while, you would not be able to upload any sensor data to the cloud.

I would also take a look at the nrf cloud solution we have at: nrfcloud.com

[Nydegger]

Thank you. this helped alot.