How to connect android/iOS app in the mesh network without GATT server

[Anaya]

Hello,

I am developing an app which connect to provisioned node using GATT in the mesh network. But the limitation of this is, it has only pair to pair communication. It is creating problem in getting acknowledgements from other nodes in the network.

So that, instead of this I want to connect my app directly to the network using mesh.

How can I achieve this? Is it possible in android and iOS  app?

Thank you.

Regards,

Anaya

[Mttrinh]

Hi,

If I understood this correctly, you can connect your phone to the mesh via a proxy link(using the proxy feature). The light switch example in our SDK supports the proxy feature by default, you can test it out with our nRF Mesh app for iOS/Android. I also suggest you have a look at the source code(iOS/Android) for the app.

[Mttrinh]

Hi,

Smartphones don't support Bluetooth Mesh protocol directly so you won't be able to provision smartphones into the network as a mesh node. As of now our examples only supports one proxy connection, but it is possible to connect multiple phones to a single proxy node. You will need to implement this feature yourself though.

[Anaya]

Hello Mttrinh,

Could you give the update on this issue in 2 days?

My work is stucked because of this issue.

Please guide asap.

Thank you.

Regards!

[Mttrinh]

Hi,

After talking to the mesh team, it seems that multiple connections are not supported by the Mesh stack currently. 

[Anaya]

Okay, but till when can you give support? Can you give it in next update?

Or could you suggest me any other alternative to achieve this?

Please guide.

Thank you.

[Anaya]

Hello Mttrinh,

Any update please?

I am waiting for your reply.

[Anaya]

Waiting for reply. please guide me.

[Mttrinh]

Hi, 

Sorry for the late reply. 

To enable multiple peripheral GATT connections, please ask customer to add/update following defines in the `app_config.h` file : 

#define NRF_SDH_BLE_PERIPHERAL_LINK_COUNT 2
#define NRF_SDH_BLE_TOTAL_LINK_COUNT 2

Set these defines to the number of connections required. Note that, increasing this value may require additional RAM for the softdevice to be allocated. If sufficient RAM is not available a call to nrf_sdh_ble_enable() at this location will fail. The required application ram start value will be available in ram_start variable. Use this value in the linker script (for example: nrf52832_xxAA_s132_7.0.1.ld) to increase application RAM starting address (RAM (rwx) `origin` field) and decrease the size of the application RAM (`length` field) by a corresponding amount and rebuild the application.

Note that, both GATT proxy clients must have the same network configuration (i.e. knowledge of network keys and nodes) to be able to communicate with a mesh node. You can do this by exporting a network database from one mobile application and importing it to another.