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

Yes, most phones that support BLE are able to act as a provisioner. Generally, they can communicate with one node over BLE, and send messages via that node, and/or receive the messages that node receives from within the mesh network.

Let's say your phone is communicating with node A which is part of a larger mesh network, and you want to know the position of node B. Then (assuming this has been implemented), the phone can request the position of node B via node A. When node A receives the response containing the info of node B's position, the phone should be able to read this via node A. So yes, you're correct in that the phone can communicate with the mesh network, but it won't be a part of the network per definition.

Best regards,

Simon