This ticket is a continuation of a BLE ticket: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/61237/connecting-50-ble-slaves-to-an-rpi/249641#249641
If briefly, I understood, there is no simple way to connect 50 slaves to a single master with BLE without using mesh, and mesh drains the battery (all the slaves are battery operated), so I wonder if ANT is a better choice.
The system description:
50 identical nRF52(or nRF53)-based devices (each with a sensor and an actuator), positioned within a 3x3 meter square should be connected to a single computer (most probably an RPi 4 with a dongle) with ANT(+).
Each module has a sensor (proximity sensor) and an actuator (LED). When a sensor is triggered on one module, it should provoke a reaction on another module and notify the central "server" (e.g. RPi4). This time between the sensor triggered and the LED turned on on another module should be around a second, definitely not more than 2.
All the modules should be able to send a "sensor-triggered" event to the server immediately after it was triggered. Each module should also periodically (once in several minutes) send a sort of keepalive message with their battery and signal strength status.
All the modules are fully battery operated, the server has a normal AC/DC connection.
The questions:
- Is it possible with ANT(+) to concurrently connect 50 slaves to a single master (point-to-point)?
- If not, is an ANT mesh more energy efficient than a BLE mesh and therefore more suitable for battery-operated units?
- If not, is there any other connectivity choice suggestion, except for using custom or proprietary radio protocols?
