BLE Mesh: more than one cell phone simultaniously active in the network

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StTh_2254271
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Hi, I want to do a project with BLE mesh.

There will be 10 nodes that are mounted statically outdoor. distance from node to node is about 25m in a row.

The idea is to provision these 10 nodes as a network.

The network will be provisioned by our service technician.

Later on the network should be used different ( unknown ) costomers.

Scenario 1:

One customer is starting our app on his cell phone and wants to connect to 1 or more of the nodes, in order to gather data from them and to control them.

Is this possible with the provisioning of our service technian, or is the provisioning needed to be done everytime our app is started?

( We hope that the provision is "stored" within the nodes and only has to be done once )

Scenario 2:

More than one customer are starting our app on their cell phone and each of them wants to connect to 1 or more nodes at the same time but they never connect to the same nodes. Is this possible?

Does the provisioning only include the BLE nodes/relays or also the cell phones?

Best wishes,

Stefan

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1 Solution
DheerajPK_41
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750 replies posted 500 likes received 500 replies posted

Hi,

It is possible.

1.

Mesh Provisioning is a process to add a node into the mesh network by providing required keys (Eg. Netkey) and local addresses. It has to be done initially, and only once. Also, we need to configure the device (ex. publication, retransmit count, etc.) after provisioning. User (or technician) can use mesh helper application (Where these provisioning and configuring steps are automated) to do these procedure easily.

When there are multiple provisioners in a network, the provisioner database (which contains all the information about the network) should be shared among all provisioners without losing the sync. (For example: Through a cloud). Using current cypress android/ios/windows mesh helper applications, you can export the database in JSON format.

2.

Since, the mobile device does not have the entire mesh stack on it, it connects to one of the mesh node (called GATT proxy node) which is a one to one connection, to access the mesh network. This proxy node acts as a bridge between the mesh network and the traditional BLE GATT device. So more than one mobile will not be able to connect to one node.

In BLE mesh a network may contain one or more subnets to provide secure isolation. (Example: A Hotel will be network and each room inside the hotel will be subnets). You can use this feature also to implement the different scenarios and isolation.

Please check below links for more details:

Thanks,

-Dheeraj

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

Hi,

It is possible.

1.

Mesh Provisioning is a process to add a node into the mesh network by providing required keys (Eg. Netkey) and local addresses. It has to be done initially, and only once. Also, we need to configure the device (ex. publication, retransmit count, etc.) after provisioning. User (or technician) can use mesh helper application (Where these provisioning and configuring steps are automated) to do these procedure easily.

When there are multiple provisioners in a network, the provisioner database (which contains all the information about the network) should be shared among all provisioners without losing the sync. (For example: Through a cloud). Using current cypress android/ios/windows mesh helper applications, you can export the database in JSON format.

2.

Since, the mobile device does not have the entire mesh stack on it, it connects to one of the mesh node (called GATT proxy node) which is a one to one connection, to access the mesh network. This proxy node acts as a bridge between the mesh network and the traditional BLE GATT device. So more than one mobile will not be able to connect to one node.

In BLE mesh a network may contain one or more subnets to provide secure isolation. (Example: A Hotel will be network and each room inside the hotel will be subnets). You can use this feature also to implement the different scenarios and isolation.

Please check below links for more details:

Thanks,

-Dheeraj

Hi Dheeraj,

thanks for the links and hints, however I do not fully understand everything, so I have some extra questions to your explanations:

1. provisioning:

I understood that the provisioning is stored in the provisioner database. When I got you right, this database is not located on one of the nodes in the network, but on the cellphone with which the provisioning was done.

Ok, I also understood, that the content of the database can be exported to a json file.

When we create a app to use the network nodes, we have to include this json file in the app, right? So any customer downloading the app has the provisioning content in place, when trying to connect to the proxy of the network. But we want will have several installations of such networks, so how can we deal with that? We will have one provising database per installation.

2. more cell phone in the network simultaniously:

I understood, that cell phones do not have BLE mesh on board, so they can only connect with "standard" Bluetooth to a proxy in the mesh network. So far so good, but can there be more than one proxy in the network, so each cellphone can connect to another proxy and gain access at the same time?

Best wishes,

Stefan

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Hi,

1.

Yes. A provisioner can export it's database to an appropriate location in appropriate format and, other provisioners can import this database to interact with the mesh network. An ideal approach is to use cloud storage to sync the database.

2.

Yes. Multiple proxy nodes can be included in a network. Multiple mobile/provisioner can connect and control the mesh network at the same time.

Thanks,

-Dheeraj

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