Bluetooth mesh

[dev_electronic]

I have some questions to Bluetooth mesh.

1. If I have a mesh Network is it possible to have a connection to a device over all the nodes? Or does mesh just support brodcast data without a real connection for configuration?

2. How can I configure the single devices for mesh mode? Do I need a direct connection first?

3. Can I use a normal app in a mesh network to connect to a device without disturbing the network?

Thank you very much!

[tesc]

Hi,

1. I am not quite sure what you mean by "a connection to a device over all the nodes". The way Bluetooth Mesh works is that all nodes relay messages throughout the network, letting any connected node send messages to any other node. There is a concept of models, which is similar to services/characteristics in BLE. Configuration is the process of connecting these models so that servers and clients of the model can communicate.

You might think of this as setting up several standard connections between pairs of devices, and as long as both devices are part of the same contiguous mesh network they can communicate. (Although the processes involved and the structure of things are both specific for Bluetooth Mesh.)

Please have a look at Basic Bluetooth Mesh concepts for an overall picture of how Bluetooth Mesh works.

2. You need to provision the devices into the Bluetooth Mesh network, in order for them to be part of the network. That usually requires a direct connection to the new device from a device known as a "provisioner". After the provisioning, you can configure the new device (usually from the provisioner). Configuration is done over the mesh network and so doesn't require direct connection. We also have a concept of "remote provisioning", which is a proprietary solution for provisioning over the mesh network. See Provisioning process and APIs for more information on all types of provisioning.

3. I do not quite understand. What do you mean by "normal app"? Can you elaborate?

Regards,
Terje

[dev_electronic]

Thank you very much. Now I understand that BT mesh has a complete different Software architecture. The 3. question now makes no sense, because it is Bluetooth low energy and not mesh.

Have you an idea about the power consumption of a node? Has the RF part be always switched on?

[tesc]

Hi,

For "normal" nodes, RF is always on. This is the backbone of the mesh network, and the most commonly envisioned such backbone consists mainly of mains powered light bulbs.

There is a concept of "friendship", where a "low power node" can be off most of the time, and occasionally communicate with a "friend node" in order to send/receive messages to/from the rest of the network. Then the friend node is always on and connected, and queues up any messages to the low power node until it can be reached. We do not have the friendship feature yet, but we do hope to have it ready for our next nRF5 SDK for Mesh release.

Regards,
Terje

[dev_electronic]

Thank you very much!