Whitelist & Random Resolvable Address

[Punit]

Does the Bluetooth Peer Address of NRF51 Chips change randomly [every 15mins] or does it remain same?

When implementing whitelisting for secured connection, it is required that this must remain same othewise the whitelisting concept is defeated.

Please suggest..

[FormerMember]

The address type of nRF51 is by default of the type "random static", meaning that the address will never change.

Update 09.03.16: I should work fine to add devices that changes address every 15 minutes (random private resolvable address) to the whitelist. For devices with that address type the IRK is used to filter devices instead of the address.

[Punit]

Hello Kristin,your answer partly solves my problem.I had a few more queires: 1]Does every NRF Chip have a unique Hardware ID[say, like a MAC]? and is it accessible by software?

[FormerMember]

It should work to add devices with random resolvable and non-resolvable random address to a whitelist. The IRK is used for device filtering for random private resolvable addresses, instead of the device address.

This post explains MAC address on the nRF51.

[sbailes]

What if the device that contains the whitelist has a random resolvable address (not the device that is being added to the whitelist)? Does it save the bonds after the address changes?

[FormerMember]

There are specific requirements for the various type of addresses (Bluetooth Core Specification v. 4.2, vol 6, part B, chapter 1.3). It means that when connecting to a peer device, your device will, based on the address type, handle them differently: a device with random private resolvable address will be identified by its IRK instead of its address. It means the device will still be identified after it changes address. It will therefore work fine to bond to a device with resolvable address and then add it to the whitelist.