Can SmartBridge support "peripheral" mode?

[ShawnA_01]

It is known that SDK 2.4.1 and later support SmartBridge platforms with the BLE link acting as a "central".

Does the SmartBridge/device/SDK have the ability to operate the BLE link as a peripheral?

The BCM20702 device (started being supported in SDK 2.4.1) and BCM43341 device (started being supported in SDK 3.0.x) used on SmartBridge boards are physically capable of peripheral mode, but the software to support it has not yet been written in the SmartBridge demo/API.

If you have a need for it, please comment on this thread and describe your use-case so we can capture the full set of requirements for consideration of implementation.

[Anonymous]

We just got the BCM9WCD1BRIDGE_1 last week. And YES! we  also need the capability to support SmartBridge in peripheral mode.

Our use case is one where the peripheral, although BLE, is actually part of an appliance with a screen, and WiFi. We are using BLE here for proximity detection, and also for ease of sending notifications from a smartphone to the screen on this appliance. The appliance has to be a peripheral as there may be several such appliances in the vicinity and the BLE central on a smartphone app must have the ability to scan and connect to the most appropriate appliance (based on RSSI, say).

What is the expected timeframe for this capability?

[ShawnA_01]

I was told there should be a beta SDK release in mid-July allowing the 43341 to support central and peripheral capability.

[Anonymous]

The idea of this SmartBridge is to use it as a gateway for PAN to connect to WAN. In this case, A star topography might be good enough.  The difference of central and peripheral is mainly on who initiate the connection. However, there're several use cases that the connection should be initiated by the remote device:

1. Low energy,  the connection doesn't need to be maintained all the time. Once there's state changes, the device could request a re-connect to the gateway. In most cases, the gateway is resource and power rich, so a peripheral role makes more sense.

2. Practically, Android, who has the largest market share on handset market, could only support central as of now. To enable the appcessories,(with Android), the SmartBridge has to play the peripheral role.

With these said, the support for peripheral role is a critical factor in some project.  Plus the investment on (adding this role to)the stack is not that significant. 

[MichaelF_56 · Accepted solution]

santol vgao arvindraghavan

Note that the new WICED SDK 3.3.1 SDK supports peripheral mode via a sample application called ble_proximity_reporter.