How to build a personal network with single pairing node?

[spruce]

I'm working on a prototype that has 8 BLE sensor nodes that are powered by coin cells and placed on different parts of a human body.

The host node is the main processing board, this one is placed on the back of the person and powered by a LiPo battery.

Our goal is to only see the host node during pairing with the mobile app and after pairing all 8 sensor data can be seen on the app.

Can someone guide us in the right direction?

At least if this can be done.

- Can we best use Bluetooth Mesh for this?

- How can the host node see the 8 sensor nodes if advertising is turned off?

- Two persons next to each other needs to be able to be in pairing phase simultaneously and no crossover pairing of sensor nodes can be happening. So the 8 sensor nodes always belongs to the corresponding host node.

- Do we need to make the mesh network pairing in production or is there a good and simple way that customers can do this themself? Thinking about NFC tag or something.

- We want only the host node to be visible on mobile devices, not the sensor nodes

[Joakim Jakobsen]

Hi!

Not sure if bluetooth mesh is the best choice here.

Our goal is to only see the host node during pairing

BLE Mesh is connectionless and uses managed flooding for communication (for the most part).

Does the nodes need to be paired with the host?

- How can the host node see the 8 sensor nodes if advertising is turned off?

What do you mean by this?

Br,
Joakim

[spruce]

Hi Joakim,

So the product is a suite with 8 wireless IMU sensors, to record human movements
At the start of the day, multiple persons start their day by putting the suite on and pair their mobile phone to the suite.

So during the pairing process, the suites need to behave as if there is only one BLE device visible per suite.
During the pairing process, it is highly likely there is another person also trying to pair his/her suite.
We can solve this, by simple give every suite a number.

- How can we bundle the group of sensors on the suite as a fixed network during the entire lifetime of the suite.

- How can we show the bundle of sensors as one BLE node, so the user only sees 1 device named "Suite 45" in his device list?

- If a fixed network of nodes per suite is possible, how do you implement the one time pairing of the sensor nodes in production? So in assembly, we finished attaching the nodes to the suite, how can we build the network easily? 

 

[Joakim Jakobsen]

Hi again. 

I don't think a Mesh protocol would be the best way to go here. I assume these are devices operating on battery power and that low power is a concern. 

spruce said:

- How can we bundle the group of sensors on the suite as a fixed network during the entire lifetime of the suite.

You could look at the possibility of creating a star topology network (normal BLE connections). Where you pair the peripheral (sensors etc.) with the central device. Save the devices to a whitelist so that the central will connect to these devices each time. 

spruce said:

- How can we show the bundle of sensors as one BLE node, so the user only sees 1 device named "Suite 45" in his device list?

Show the devices where exactly?

Br, 
Joakim