Hi Nordic,
I've reviewed the Mesh PyACI which uses a serial connection with a DK to provision a separate Mesh device over-the-air, if I understand correctly. But is there a way to provision a device over serial directly, without going through the provisioner DK? My device has a combined SWD and UART connector, and I'd like to flash firmware and provision over this wired connection. Is this possible?
Thanks for any insights here.
Hi,
Through the serial interface, you control the node from a PyACI session on the PC. Theoretically I think it should be possible to provision the device that way, yes. Either through use of the serial API directly, and/or through equipping the device itself with provisioner capabilities and/or a configuration server (which can then be controlled over serial) for the self configuration. Note that you would need PyACI (or similar software) on a PC (or other connected device) in order to do that provisioning, and then the network configuration database would be on that PC. In practice, you would like the database to reside on a provisioner that can be used to manage the network, provision additional nodes, configure nodes, perform network updates, etc.
Note also that from the perspective of the Bluetooth mesh specification, provisioning is not supposed to be done in factory. Rather, it is the process of adding a new device to an existing network, at the location of that existing network. Or, if no such network is set up already, start setting up such a network with the new devices together with a provisioner.
Normally, you would not need to add a custom/proprietary serial provisioning to the device. There are two transports (bearers) for provisioning a device, specified by the Bluetooth mesh specifications: The ADV bearer and the GATT bearer. Both build on Bluetooth Low Energy, both are supported by nRF5 SDK for Mesh, and for the GATT bearer you can use a smart phone app as provisioner. Ideally you should use those (existing, specified) methods. In addition, in the nRF5 SDK for Mesh, we have remote provisioning, which uses the existing mesh network for relaying provisioning between a provisioner and a provisionee that is not within radio range of each other.
I guess other options could be to build something based off of a subset of the Serial Interface, or make a light-weight protocol using UART directly, interfacing with lower levels of the Bluetooth mesh stack. However please note that doing changes to the stack itself most likely will void the qualification.
Regards,
Terje
Hi,
Through the serial interface, you control the node from a PyACI session on the PC. Theoretically I think it should be possible to provision the device that way, yes. Either through use of the serial API directly, and/or through equipping the device itself with provisioner capabilities and/or a configuration server (which can then be controlled over serial) for the self configuration. Note that you would need PyACI (or similar software) on a PC (or other connected device) in order to do that provisioning, and then the network configuration database would be on that PC. In practice, you would like the database to reside on a provisioner that can be used to manage the network, provision additional nodes, configure nodes, perform network updates, etc.
Note also that from the perspective of the Bluetooth mesh specification, provisioning is not supposed to be done in factory. Rather, it is the process of adding a new device to an existing network, at the location of that existing network. Or, if no such network is set up already, start setting up such a network with the new devices together with a provisioner.
Normally, you would not need to add a custom/proprietary serial provisioning to the device. There are two transports (bearers) for provisioning a device, specified by the Bluetooth mesh specifications: The ADV bearer and the GATT bearer. Both build on Bluetooth Low Energy, both are supported by nRF5 SDK for Mesh, and for the GATT bearer you can use a smart phone app as provisioner. Ideally you should use those (existing, specified) methods. In addition, in the nRF5 SDK for Mesh, we have remote provisioning, which uses the existing mesh network for relaying provisioning between a provisioner and a provisionee that is not within radio range of each other.
I guess other options could be to build something based off of a subset of the Serial Interface, or make a light-weight protocol using UART directly, interfacing with lower levels of the Bluetooth mesh stack. However please note that doing changes to the stack itself most likely will void the qualification.
Regards,
Terje
