What is the practical maximum number of BLE Mesh nodes that can be provisioned?

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StSi_1143416
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We have a number of projects which require between 800 and 1000 Bluetooth mesh nodes. Although the Bluetooth spec. says that the maximum number of nodes in any given Bluetooth mesh network is 32,767, with up to 4,096 subnets and 65,535 scenes, it seems that the real number of nodes that can be provisioned in a network is a function of the available memory in the devices being used and of the capability of the Bluetooth mesh stack. For example a competitive product to Cypress devices states that their limitation is a maximum of 255 nodes (depending on the amount of NV memory available).

I would like to find out the following:

1. What is the limitation (if any) to the amount of provisioned nodes due to the Cypress Bluetooth mesh stack?

2. What are the limitations to the amount of provisioned nodes for the following Cypress devices (using their maximum amount of memory):

a. CYW20819

b. CYW20719

3. If the amount of nodes that can be provisioned are less then our requirements, any suggested network topographies (e.g. gateways) would be greatly appreciated.

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DheerajPK_41
Moderator
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750 replies posted 500 likes received 500 replies posted

Hi StSi_1143416​,

We have successfully tested around 100 mesh nodes in a single network 1 year back itself and I am pretty sure that the number of nodes in a single network can be go much higher than that because the mesh supported chips have enough RAM to handle the data.

As per the spec, SIG says, mesh supports 32767 Elements in a mesh network. But a device can have multiple elements also.

In my opinion, limitations can be in the mechanism of dealing the flooding mesh data, cache list, other mandatory security procedures, etc which are more related to the software implementation. From the code I could understand the mesh cache replay size is 200, which means the device can accept messages from 200 different nodes and process them. But IV update procedure can clear the list and allow new devices to be part of the network communication. Also, maximum number of network keys, application keys, scenes and scheduler events are configured to 4, 8, 10 and 16 respectively as of now. So you can always create subnets and add more nodes into it.

Let me work with our software team and see I can get you a theoretical number of nodes which we support.

Thanks,

-Dheeraj

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DheerajPK_41
Moderator
Moderator
Moderator
750 replies posted 500 likes received 500 replies posted

Hi StSi_1143416​,

We have successfully tested around 100 mesh nodes in a single network 1 year back itself and I am pretty sure that the number of nodes in a single network can be go much higher than that because the mesh supported chips have enough RAM to handle the data.

As per the spec, SIG says, mesh supports 32767 Elements in a mesh network. But a device can have multiple elements also.

In my opinion, limitations can be in the mechanism of dealing the flooding mesh data, cache list, other mandatory security procedures, etc which are more related to the software implementation. From the code I could understand the mesh cache replay size is 200, which means the device can accept messages from 200 different nodes and process them. But IV update procedure can clear the list and allow new devices to be part of the network communication. Also, maximum number of network keys, application keys, scenes and scheduler events are configured to 4, 8, 10 and 16 respectively as of now. So you can always create subnets and add more nodes into it.

Let me work with our software team and see I can get you a theoretical number of nodes which we support.

Thanks,

-Dheeraj

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