Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

RE: Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

Simonr — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 06:25:58 GMT

Hi again

[quote user="Mxoh"]my concern is that it means we always have to repair to the app and new central. [/quote]

Maybe not necessarily. It occurred to me that you're not restricted to the one central, and each peripheral could maintain the central connection to (for example) the helmet, while the phone app (also a central) connects to them and checks I.E. battery life. Then the last device could also switch between being a central and peripheral to connect to the phone as well.

Regarding the 2.4GHz/ESB channel, I'm not that familiar with these applications, so I'm not sure unfortunately.

I can't remember seeing any Thread network outdoor use-cases specifically in the past, no, but there might be some that I've missed. No, Thread does not require a Wi-Fi network, but it's possible to connect with a border router to Wi-Fi. Have you seen our introduction blog post to Thread here with a quick overview? Yes, with one router and multiple end points, it would indeed be similar to a BLE star network.

Best regards,

Simon

RE: Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

Mxoh — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 03:16:26 GMT

Thanks Simon, I see! Let me discuss with my engineer about this. After connecting to a new central, what happens when we connect the devices to the app again? I guess it could be acceptable for users to pair with the new central but this should preferably only happen once. We provide the app to also check battery life more easily and provide firmware updates so a user would periodically open the app and my concern is that it means we always have to repair to the app and new central.

We thought of another idea where the devices connect to the app through BLE and the app is the central. The devices then talk to each other via 2.4 GHz/ESB. So when a user connects all his devices through the app, we automatically assign them to a private 2.4GHz/ESB channel. Do you think that this is possible?

Just curious for Thread have you seen any outdoor use-case and does Thread require a Wi-Fi network to work? Technically speaking if we define a clear router and the rest of devices as end nodes it is similar to BLE multi-link right?

Once again, I apologise for the many questions as we are in the midst of experiments and my challenge to our engineers is to find the best possible way to set up a network of device to have our required light configurations.

RE: Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

Simonr — Mon, 06 Sep 2021 12:38:43 GMT

In this case I think the app would be better suited to act as the central. But this would make it necessary for the app to stay connected to these devices. I'm afraid there isn't any router role in BLE like in Mesh/Thread networks. I guess you can use an app to set up the network, and then make one of the other devices central once it leaves, but the devices would have to pair again with this new central.

Best regards,

Simon

RE: Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

Mxoh — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 13:46:11 GMT

I see. Good to have that info! I do feel that my company is exploring more into the BLE multi-link route but another question that I have is:

Can we setup the BLE multi-link network by pairing all devices through our app rather than pairing the peripherals with the central individually? Why I ask is because we have an app that all devices can pair to and it would be a hassle to pair with the app and also the central individually. It would be preferred if all devices pair to the app and we set up the central and peripherals accordingly. I hope my question is clear enough and thanks for your help so far!

RE: Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

Simonr — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 07:17:58 GMT

Hi again

Regarding the central going down. I don't think the devices will be able to choose a central by themselves, but you could either have a button for setting a device to act as the central, and then it can automatically connect to the other devices that are set to advertise when not already in a connection. Alternatively, you can have one specific device (the helmet for example) that is configured to act as a central if the original central is dropped and the helmet connection times out (this might not be as safe, as if the helmet times out by itself it will try to act as a central.

I'm not too familiar with ANT+ I'm afraid, so I'm hesitant to provide any specific suggestions on whether to use it or not. I guess you could contact their support channels to ask whether this is a viable approach.

Best regards,

Simon

RE: Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

Mxoh — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:06:51 GMT

Thanks for the super clear answer Simon!

It seems more clear to me now that multi-link is our way forward then. I guess we were too heavily influenced by the hot and trendy networking technologies and multi-link is somehow not as well-known. I am curious though as whether there is more information or numbers on power usage of the various technologies as it seems that network technologies are mostly marketed as low power and we weren't sure until we actually tried them.

For multi-link would it be possible if 1 central goes down and the remaining devices are able to automatically pick the new central without phone intervention?

Also would you recommend other technologies such as ANT+ for our outdoor accessories use-case? I do think my company is at a stage now where we are open to experimenting but I believe that once we pick one technology we would be stuck with it for a while.

RE: Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

Simonr — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 13:42:38 GMT

Thank you for the explanation.

Should all these devices be able to send messages to all other devices? If so, it seems like they all have to be "Routers" which will require them to have their transceiver enabled at all times, which will impact current consumption significantly. As you can see here, only the end nodes will at times disable their transceiver to reduce current consumption, but in turn, these won't be able to send messages to all other nodes in the network, and only to one router. I'm afraid a Thread network won't be what you're looking for, as you won't be able to have your cake and eat it too in this scenario. It is either low current consumption as an end node or "able to forward packets and listening/transmitting to all other devices".

I still think the multi-link would be the go-to. Yes, you'll need a central, and multiple peripherals, but a peripheral can send a message to "change light pattern" to the central, which then can tell the other peripherals to also change the light patterns. You could either have the phone as the central (although it would require you to bring the phone on each trip), or you could have any of the devices configurable as either central or peripheral (depending on what devices the customer has). So you could have a glove be the central, the helmet, or either light, and all the others be the peripheral.

Yes, if the central goes down for some reason, the other devices will eventually time out and disconnect. If all devices then are configurable as centrals, you could choose a new central and set up a new network with the remaining devices.

Best regards,

Simon

RE: Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

Mxoh — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 15:00:49 GMT

Hi Simonr,

Thanks for your response. In essence, we hope to create a smart "home" network that works outdoors. Right now, we produce smart helmets that can be configured through phone. It is a simple BLE point to point connection. The user sets up certain settings on the phone through the app and he is done. A critical configuration would be setting the 3 light modes. Light modes are light settings (flashing patterns in our case) that the user picked and he can cycle through them with the power button without the phone.

www.dropbox.com/.../Screenshot 2021-08-24 at 10.44.50 PM.png

On our roadmap, we have bicycle smart lights and perhaps even sensors/remotes/navigation devices. Below are 2 example networks:

www.dropbox.com/.../Screenshot 2021-08-24 at 10.47.54 PM.png

Similarly, the phone would be primarily used to acknowledge that these devices belong to the same network and set the 3 light modes / flashing patterns. We hope that the phone do not need to be the central (only for configurations) and all devices be synced to correspond to the same light mode when cycling through and their flashing pattern would be flashing in sync as well.

Frankly, we drew a lot of our technical inspiration from smart homes with most of them using Zigbee (but unsuitable in our case as it requires to be connected to a home router for WiFi to your phone) and came across Thread as an up and coming smart home protocol. We are super concerned about battery consumption and being able to work outdoors so want to explore all options that have this potential.

The multi-link seems possible and 20 nodes should be more than sufficient for a bike scenario. But it seems like we have to pick one device as the central and the change of light modes where we press the power button to cycle through light modes can only be done through that central device. Let's say the central is down, would all the peripherals connected not work together?

RE: Thread protocol for outdoor sports accessories

Simonr — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 13:29:50 GMT

I don't see why you would want or need a Thread network for the use case you've described here. How many devices do you want to be in a network exactly, and for what reason?

BLE will be the most power efficient solution I think, and the multi-link example is set to handle 8 peripherals by default, and should be able to handle up to 20 links. Do you want all devices to be connected to one central (like a phone), or are they all supposed to be connected together somehow? Can you try to explain what use case you would need them to be in a Thread type network for.

One of the devices would still need to be a commissioner I think, and would draw quite a bit of current.

Best regards,

Simon