Questions about positionings of the Nodes in the BLE Mesh

[NORD44]

Hello, I was wondering, 
Firstly and more important question, Is there a way in a BLE Mesh standard to physically locate/position the nodes? In order to obtain the distance of all nodes with respect to each other.
(Please note that I am not asking about tracking a moving object like a person who enters the mesh!) 

Secondly, as far as I understood in practice most of the nodes in a BLE mesh must be static or they are installed in a fixed place. Is that right? 
Lastly, is there any distinction between a node (like a smartphone) which STARTS sending a command to change the state of a group of nodes and other nodes? or this very node is just simply called a node like other nodes.

[Simonr]

Hi

I'll start with 1 to keep it structured.

1. Yes, it seems like direction finding and Mesh will be compatible with one another according to this blog post, and I think Quuppa provides these kinds of solutions with a few of their partners. But using RSSI to get the rough estimate is by far the easiest way to accomplish what you describe I'd imagine.

3. It can not work as a relayer or a friend node, as it is dependent on a BLE connection to one single node in the mesh network. For these features the phone's OS will have to support the Bluetooth Mesh protocol.

Best regards,

Simon

[NORD44]

Thanks again.

3. Yes, as far as I understood Android and IOS devices do not support mesh protocol, but they can be used as a provisioner to add an unprovisioned device into the mesh.

However, by implementing the proxy protocol on the smartphone it can communicate with the mesh network, to send/receive messages  (like sending a message to ask about the positioning of the nodes mentioned in 1 ).

Am I got right?