Two connections between nRf52832 device and a single smartphone

[Erikk]

Hi,

I have a question about the connection handling when we have two connections to a single smartphone.

The smartphone runs two Applications:

  App 1: Acts as central/master, my device is peripheral

  App 2: Acts as peripheral/slave, my device is central

I read this discussion which says that this should be possible for the nRF.

However here it is stated that the smartphone will "only support one physical connection" 

-------- Q1:Does this mean that it is impossible to have two connections as central and peripheral to the smartphone?

--------- Q2: If it should be possible is there any example that shows how to handle this?

Currently I have issues that when for example disconnecting one connection, both Apps will be disconnected and not able to connect again before not deleting the bonding information on both sides. This happens even though I get two connection handles and two peer ids, one for every App.

----------Q3: Should it be the case that I get two connection handles?

Thank you for any help on the questions

[Amanda Hsieh]

(Updated)

After confirming with our apps expert, I corrected the answer. 

Hi Erikk, 

Q1. It is possible. 

Q2. You can refer to our Android BLE Library which supports bi-directional communication. For the device, you can refer to nRF5 SDK LE Secure Connections Multirole Example which can act either as a Peripheral or as a Central.

Q3. Yes. 

-Amanda H. 

[Erikk]

I think the link to the indicated post is broken...

[Amanda Hsieh]

The link is fixed. Post again here https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/60845/nrf-connect-multiple-connections-to-same-peripheral/247558#247558 

[pressure_sensor_nonconn_adv]

Hi Amanda,

Kenneth stated in the linked post that: "Apps can have multiple "virtual connections" to the same peripheral."

Wouldn't that mean that we can have two connections (just virtual ones)?

This would also correspond to what was observed. Namely that the phone uses two MAC addresses and two connection handles are given to the application by the softdevice S132.

Thank you for your help and kind regards.