Bluetooth Mesh Provisioning available via NFC?

[Matthew K]

Hi, guys!

Since the nRF52 DK's support NFC,

I was wondering whether it is possible to provision an nRF Mesh client/server using NFC and a Google Android phone.

I just want to use my Android Phone (like Nexus 5) as a Mesh Provisioner and I want the nRF devices to be provisioned by tagging it.

0) Are there any Android / iOS NFC app example (with Codes - Java / Go / Swift, etc) from Nordic that acts as a Mesh Provisioner, regardless of the NFC feature?

1) What about an Android / iOS NFC app example that can use NFC to provision an nRF mesh device?

I know the iOS has Core NFC now so I was curious about this.

-Thanks!

[Matthew K]

Hung Bui said:

However, in your case it's a little bit different that you don't need bluetooth pairing but just to receive the address of the Bluetooth device (the mesh node). 

Thanks for pointing that out!

Hung Bui said:

I'm not sure there is a library on the phone to do that.

Really? I thought the Nordic's Github page that has both iOS Mesh and Android Mesh had the library to do this job.

Hung Bui said:

you can implement your own code to read NFC and start the connection to do provisioning. 

If those Github code doesn't have this feature, you are saying I have to

0. Wake up the nRF52 via NFC (like remove 'nfc_ble_pair_on_pm_params_req` in `pm_evt_handler`, add `nfc_callback`, etc)

1. Send the Mesh device's MAC address (read it using `sd_ble_gap_address_get(&ble_addr);`) to the smartphone via NFC

by adding text records to NDEF text message (like `nfc_ndef_msg_record_add`)

2. The smartphone starts to provision the device using the received address

This is what you've meant, right?

-Thanks for your help!

[Hung Bui]

Correct, the library for iOS and Android is more about Mesh and has nothing to with NFC. 

What you described is correct. The point is to shorten the process of scanning the device, select it and connect to it. All should be done automatically by a touch on the NFC tag.