Bluetooth Mesh Heartbeat Example

[SDK_User_771]

Hi.

I have some questions regarding the Heartbeat Example mentioned in this Ticket: Ble mesh heartbeat example - Nordic Q&A - Nordic DevZone - Nordic DevZone (nordicsemi.com)

1: Does an updated Version of the Example for  SDK v.17.0.2/ SDK for Mesh v.5.0.0 exist?

2: Is it possible to configure the nodes in a way, that every node that publishes the Heartbeat signal is also subscribed to the Heartbeatsignal send by the other nodes? 

    The Reason for this is to create a fully meshed network in which every node ,,knows" its distance to the other nodes. 

3: Is there more documentation to this example, like specific documentation on how it was set up/programmed? 

Best Regards. 

[Hung Bui]

Hi,

1. No, we currently don't have updated version for that. I created the example 2 years ago just like an example on how to configure heart beat. What you can do is to try run the example with the correct SDK version. After that you can compare the modification I made and find out what I added. It's quite simple I would say. Then you can implement similar modification to SDK v5. 

2. I quoted here some info that I answered in the support case 2 years ago:

"By design the heartbeat should not be permanent and rebroadcast after the device reboot. The reason is that if it keep sending permanent heartbeat, there is no way to stop it from draining power and using network resource to send heartbeat unless changed by provisioner. 

The main use case of heartbeat is to let the provisioner detect a node in the network, and base on the data of the heartbeat , configure the network parameter correctly. "

The robustness and simplification of BLE mesh was built on top of the flood mesh mechanism when there is no path calculation (based on RSSI). If you plan to collect RSSI of all nodes you are trying to create a mesh path and making more traffic due to the periodically sent health messages. 

If you still want to collect RSSI I would suggest to define your own model for the purpose. The heatbeat can't be restored after the node reset. 

[SDK_User_771]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick and good reply.

1. Oke no Problem, i was just asking because, if you already had an updated version lying around, it would be a waste not to use it ^^ 

2. I suspected that it was like this but i wasn't sure, hence the question. I hoped i could maybe just modify the example for my usecase, since defining a model from scratch seems way more difficult/time consumeing. 

If the traffic is such a big Problem, is it even possible with Bluetooth to establish a Mesh Network in which every node collects the RSSI of every other node (saying it's just a small number of ~10 nodes)? Would u recommend useing ZigBee for this usecase instead?

Best Regards.