Creating BLE mesh from PB-GATT supported devices

[Karthi]

Hello,

I'm trying to create a Mesh network with the following devices:

              * Mobile phone as provisioner (supports PB-GATT only)

              * Two different bulb's which supports PB-GATT only

As both the bulb's support PB-GATT, it would be possible for the mobile phone to provision them.

I have the following questions in this scenario:

              1) Since none of the devices support PB-ADV, is it possible for the above devices to create a BLE mesh network?

              2) If answer to the first question is yes, then how would the phone control both of these devices? Does it need to make explicit BLE connection to first device, control & disconnect and then repeat the same procedure with the second device?

Thanks in Advance!!!

[tesc]

Hi,

There are two types of bearer needed for a Bluetooth mesh node: The first one is the provisioning bearer, which is used for provisioning the node into a network. The second one is the bearer used for communicating over the network.

For provisioning the two nodes using the PB-GATT bearer, you need to connect to each node separately. This is not much different from when using PB-ADV for provisioning, where you also need to communicate directly to one provisionee at the time. In addition to those two choices, we have a proprietary PB-REMOTE, which lets the communication between provisioner and provisionee happen through the mesh network.

When it comes to the Bluetooth mesh network, nodes can connect to the network using the GATT bearer by connecting through a node with the "GATT proxy" feature. The GATT proxy node must also support the ADV bearer, by Bluetooth mesh specification.

What this all means, is at least one of your nodes must support the ADV bearer, for communication to happen between nodes on your network. If there are nodes using the GATT bearer, you need at least one node with the GATT proxy feature, for those nodes to participate in the network. Note that those bearers, used for normal network communication, are not the same as the "provisioning bearers" PB-ADV and PB-GATT.

Regards,
Terje

[Karthi]

That clarifies my doubts!

Thanks a lot :)