Re-enable mesh

[AlexVaPe]

Hello,

I'm developing an application that is sending data every certain seconds in a mesh network and, in order to reduce the power consumption, I wish the node enter into sleep mode by disabling mesh by using nrf_mesh_disable(), and then wake it up again, by using nrf_mesh_enable().

I´m doing some tests before so that mesh is enabled at the beginning, until I press a button, and then, I can disable it and enter the node in sleep mode and reduce power consumption. However, when I try to wake it up again, I'm getting an "ASSERTION FAILED" error. I attach below the for loop inside my main function:

for (;;)
	{
		mealy_fire((mealy_t*)&temp_fsm);
		NRF_LOG_FLUSH();
		sd_app_evt_wait();

        //If Button 1 is pressed
		if(flag_int){
			NRF_LOG_INFO("Button 1");
			flag_int = false;
            
            //mesh_enabled is a flag, that is initially true
			if(mesh_enabled){
				mesh_enabled = false;
				ERROR_CHECK(nrf_mesh_disable());
			}
			else{
				mesh_enabled = true;
				ERROR_CHECK(nrf_mesh_enable());
			}
		}

	}

Is this correct? Is there any function that is needed to be called before disabling or enabling mesh?

I wish someone could help me to disable and enable mesh in a proper way in order to reduce power consumption while no data is being sent.

I am using SDK for Mesh 2.0.1, SDK15, the nrf52832 with SD132 SoftDevice and a PCA10040 board.

Regards,

Alex

[Bjørn Kvaale]

Hi Alex,

Bluetooth Mesh is not a low power solution. The relay nodes need to be mains powered, as their radio needs to be on to listen for incoming messages. If you want to have a low power node, I would consider looking at our Low Power Node example here.

Kind Regards,

Bjørn

[AlexVaPe]

For now, I just want that the node keeps sleeping for a large period, wake it up for sending a simple temperature data and then, just turn sleeping again. But I don't know well how to do it. I`ve tried to apply what it says in this thread, but I'm getting assert errors.

Now i'm getting high current consumption (around 13 mA) even when the node isn´t provisioned, so I need to optimize somehow that consumption.

Is there any way to do this?

Thanks,

Alex

[Bjørn Kvaale]

This sounds like the perfect use case for the low power node example I mentioned in my last case! Have you taken a look at that example?

[AlexVaPe]

Yes, i've been reading about it, but this solution implies the definition of a network topology and that is something I don't want for my application.

In my application, all of the nodes will be battery-powered and all of them will be doing the same operations. So I want to find a way to keep all of them powered off or sleeping, and reset them, in order to read and send a simple data and finally turn again to sleep.

Is there any alternative way to do this?

Thanks,

Alex

[Bjørn Kvaale]

You could take a look at the multilink example that we have, where you can have one central device connected to up to 20 peripheral devices. This uses regular Bluetooth Low Energy, not Bluetooth Mesh.