How to use a Provisioner device (Smartphone) to connect and control any desired node(switch or light) nearby in BLE mesh network and send it(node) a message that can be spread further in the BLE mesh network ?

[As_Dev]

I am new to the mesh network technology. I am experimenting with the iOS BLE Mesh app provided by Nordic on App store and nRF52 development kit. The App functions very good. I can provision, configure the elements present in the node, create group and reset node etc with the App. The nodes configured as client or server also function well.

Now I am interested to control the node (with client or control model) from Provisioner (smartphone). For example connecting to the node(with client or control model)  from Provisioner and sending it message to turn the LED on or off of server nodes in the BLE mesh.

I have read about Proxy node. That it can communicate to non mesh device(Smartphone) through BLE GATT or in some articles it is written, through classic Bluetooth. I also have read that a smartphone cannot act as a node in the BLE Mesh. So there is no clear picture how to perform this. How to control the nodes from smartphone?

Do every node needs a custom profile with services and characteristics to be able to communicate with the Smartphone?

In the current Example App (BLE MESH) from Nordic, this functionality is not available. I hope I will get the answer to this question.

[Joakim Jakobsen]

Hi. 

How to control the nodes from smartphone?

This should already be available in our nRF Mesh app for iOS. If you take a look at the blog-post below, you can see how to provision and control the devices in the Mesh network using your smartphone. 

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/nordic-blog/b/blog/posts/provision-configure-and-control-bluetooth-mesh-networks-with-nrf-mesh 

Best regards, 
Joakim  

[As_Dev]

First of all, thank you Joakim for replying my question.

I saw that video before. The video shows how to provision a node and configure the models in the elements present in the provisioned node and also assigning application key to the different models.

But how to control the OnOffServer model in the node from the App. How to turn the LED on or off from the App?

How to publish from the App?

Is there any way to do that? 

[Joakim Jakobsen]

Hi. 

As_Dev said:

But how to control the OnOffServer model in the node from the App. How to turn the LED on or off from the App?

This can be done by going to the Light switch server in the app -> Generic OnOff Server -> Toggling the GenericOnOff state (see picture below). 

 

[As_Dev]

That's great. Actually, I was working with the iOS-nRF-Mesh-Library Version 1.0.4, in that version there was no possiblity to do this. I have downloaded the new version of  iOS-nRF-Mesh-Library 2.0.0 today and now I can see that option there. Now I am able to control the LED of server node from App. Thank you.