Using NFC for Provisioning nRF Mesh Application

[smohan]

Hi Nordic Team,

I am new to Bluetooth mesh and NFC. I am working with the device nRF5340 and SDK NCS v1.5.0 .

I have used the sample Bluetooth: Mesh light as a starting point for mesh , and Bluetooth: NFC pairing to realize NFC as a pairing method for BLE, using nRF Connect for Mobile application in android phone as central device. 

I am trying to implement the provisioning process through NFC in the Bluetooth mesh application, for instance the Mesh Light application. I have some doubts in this regards.

Is it possible to use NFC for provisioning in mesh applications?, if possible, does the nRF Mesh mobile application from Nordic support provisioning through NFC?

Are there any mesh samples that uses NFC for provisioning?

I kindly request you to support me in this regard.

Thanks,

S Mohan

[Hung Bui]

Hi Smohan, 

I afraid not much has been implemented to use NFC for mesh. 

What are you planning to do by "Provisioning data through NFC" ? Are you planning to transfer the whole provisioning process via NFC or it's only about authentication data (OOB) that you want to send over NFC ? 

If you want to have the entire provisioning process via NFC you would need to implement that on your own as it's not part of the mesh's spec. 

If you plan to use NFC only for OOB data for authentication, you can modify the mesh stack to offer the data to NFC and then read that on the phone. We still don't have the support for that in our app, but it's not too difficult to implement. 

[smohan]

Thank you very much for the reply Hung Bui .

I am planning to send OOB data from unprovisioned node to the Provisioner device (mobile) via NFC.

Hung Bui said:

We still don't have the support for that in our app, but it's not too difficult to implement.

Can you please let me know any other alternative to the nRF Mesh app for NFC support, any experimental app from Nordic?

Is there a way to add the NFC feature to the mesh app via any NFC android libraries, to receive the required OOB authentication data from the SoC?

Note: I have tried Bluetooth: NFC pairing example using the "nRF Connect for Mobile" android app, and found that nRF Connect app uses the pairing(bonding) related data from the android built in NFC service. So got a thought whether the same can be achieved in "nRF Mesh" app. 

Thanks,
S Mohan

[Hung Bui]

Hi Mohan, 

Yes you can modify nRF Mesh app to add NFC support using NFC Android library. We don't have an example for that but I don't see a problem for adding one. 

[smohan]

Hello Mr. Hung Bui

Thank You so much for the reply.

Is any possibility to get updated nRF Mesh App with NFC feature enabled from Nordic Team? 

It will be very helpful to our Embedded firmware team, if we get it. 

Thanks,

S Mohan

  

[smohan]

Hi Mr. Hung Bui , I have planned to use NFC to pass the output OOB data to mobile via NFC record, for example the number of times the led blinks data through NFC and receive it in "NFC Tools" app in mobile, and input that data in the "nRF Mesh" app. I am trying to use this method till that feature of directly reading NFC data  would be updated in "nRF Mesh" app, which I have requested in nRF Mesh GitHub repo.

What do u think of this approach? Does this suffice authentication through NFC OOB, as I couldn't find a separate authentication method featuring NFC in Mesh profile v1.0.1?

Kindly let me know if there are any suggestions. 

Thanks,

Mohan