Bluetooth mesh overview¶
The Bluetooth mesh profile specification is developed and published by the Bluetooth SIG. It allows one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many communication, using the Bluetooth LE protocol to exchange messages between the nodes on the network. All nodes in a Bluetooth mesh network can communicate with each other, as long as there’s a chain of nodes between them to relay the messages. The messages are encrypted with two layers of 128-bit AES-CCM encryption, allowing secure communication between thousands of devices.
The end-user applications are implemented as a set of mesh models. The Bluetooth SIG defines some generic and reusable models in the Bluetooth mesh model specification, but vendors are free to define their own models.
Read more about the Bluetooth mesh in the Bluetooth SIG’s Bluetooth mesh study guide and Bluetooth mesh FAQ. Make also sure to check the official Bluetooth mesh glossary.
Supported features¶
The Bluetooth mesh in nRF Connect SDK supports all mandatory features of the Bluetooth mesh profile specification and the Bluetooth mesh model specification, as well as most of the optional features.
The following features are supported by Zephyr’s Bluetooth Mesh Profile:
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Node role
Relay feature
Low power feature
Friend feature
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Provisionee role (GATT and Advertising Provisioning bearer)
Provisioner role (only Advertising Provisioning bearer)
In addition to these features, nRF Connect SDK implements several models defined in the Bluetooth mesh model specification. See Bluetooth mesh models for details.