nRF52840 Mesh Sending Big Packets of Data over Mesh or BLE

[nikiizvorski]

Hi there. I want to start first i am new to BLE Mesh. I have checked pretty much everything on the Bluetooth SIG and there are some questions. I have flashed the nRF52840 Dongle with the light switch examples. And i am very happy how stable and good it works. So here is a list of questions:

1. Can i define a custom model thats not part of the default ones?

2. Can i define a custom element thats not a default element?

3. How much data can be passed over the mesh let say from the phone to all the nodes. For example the following string: "Hey this is a custom message to be passed over the mesh".

4. Let say thats possible. Can i define a custom characteristics on the Proxy Node and write to it and after that message to be passed over the mesh on all the nodes?

5. If none of that works what would be the best way to implement this over BLE Mesh and can it be done right now.

Have in mind that the main platform for communication with the proxy would be Android or IOS phone. 

Would appreciate a lot if someone can answer my questions. I have done some tests my self and found a lot of answers but would be best to get some more knowledge from the community. 

The rest of the documentation and the samples you provided is great and i can't wait to know more about it.

Thanks

[Joakim Jakobsen]

Hi. 

I'm glad to hear that you are looking into Bluetooth Mesh and that the light switch examples is working well for you. 

As for your questions. 

1/2.
Yes, this is possible. We have a guide in our documentation with more information about this.

Creating new models 
-This guide presents the basics of how to create new models. You may implement your own vendor-specific model which will enable your devices to provide custom states and behaviors not covered by the already defined standard models.

3. 
The throughput in a Mesh network is highly dependent of several factors. How many nodes do you have in your network, are you sending reliable or unreliable messages, how many hops to you need to reach the receiver node etc. 

For one hop we have seen 3.46kbps ( ~54 Bytes/s) with 20ms advertising, 100% scanning with a 11 bytes byte payload,  Non-Acked, i.e. unreliable.

4. 
I suggest you take a look at this thread already answered by one of my colleagues. 
https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/29836/send-and-receive-a-string-via-access-layer 

There is also a lot of other information to find in our documentation library. 
https://www.nordicsemi.com/DocLib 
And of course you can find a lot of Q&A's already on devzone. 

Best regards, 
Joakim