[HN Gopher] Features and Benefits of Bluetooth Mesh 1.1 for Wire...
___________________________________________________________________
Features and Benefits of Bluetooth Mesh 1.1 for Wireless Mesh
Networking
Author : teleforce
Score : 76 points
Date : 2024-01-12 16:09 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bluetooth.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bluetooth.com)
| lioeters wrote:
| Connecting the dots from another article on HN front page today,
| about ESP32.
|
| ESP-BLE-MESH Architecture
|
| > Bluetooth(r) mesh networking enables many-to-many (m:m) device
| communications and is optimized for creating large-scale device
| networks.
|
| > Devices may relay data to other devices not in direct radio
| range of the originating device. In this way, mesh networks can
| span very large physical areas and contain large numbers of
| devices. It is ideally suited for building automation, sensor
| networks, and other IoT solutions where tens, hundreds, or
| thousands of devices need to reliably and securely communicate
| with one another.
|
| > Built on top of Zephyr Bluetooth Mesh stack, the ESP-BLE-MESH
| implementation supports device provisioning and node control.
|
| https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32/...
| m-p-3 wrote:
| That seems something that briarproject.org could leverage for
| their bluetooth comms.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| We've been using some tracking hardware with firmware from a
| company called Wirepas that has implements mesh networking.
| They've been doing this at scale for quite some years. I their
| technology uses both wifi and bluetooth. They don't do hardware
| themselves and instead work with a large amount of OEMs. Cool
| company to check out and I absolutely love their website and
| approach to marketing. If you have a few minutes, check out their
| videos. They are hilarious.
|
| The attraction of their solution is that the devices can be
| wireless and don't require a lot of infrastructure. You basically
| just mount them to the wall or the ceiling. Battery life is
| pretty good as well depending how you set these devices up. Years
| typically. Installation cost and effort is one of the big hurdles
| for companies to take this stuff into use.
|
| So, interesting to see some standards for mesh networking
| emerging here.
| e12e wrote:
| Did you buy any devices via?
|
| https://www.wirepas.com/partner-products/?
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| No, one of our partners is a company called Bornemann and
| they are one of the OEMs listed there. So we've mostly worked
| with their devices and platform.
| farkanoid wrote:
| Wirepas requested a meeting with us at our office several years
| ago. They were very polite, but in all honesty, we knew even
| less about implementing their product afterward, and felt as
| though they weren't really interested in working with /us/ at
| all.
|
| Most of our questions were about implementing their firmware in
| our hardware (which largely went unanswered), and most of their
| questions were focussed companies we have ties with, that they
| were interested in reaching but have so far been unsuccessful.
|
| I hope they're doing well as it was an interesting product.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| They raised 22 million a few months ago. So, it looks like
| they are doing well. Might be worth reaching out again if
| that's still relevant to you. I've talked to a few of their
| people on a couple of occasions and they were pretty
| competent and pleasant to deal with.
| thedougd wrote:
| I thought Bluetooth mesh would overtake the home automation world
| but it never landed.
|
| Any insight as to why? I suspect the standards body and licensing
| have something to do with it but maybe there are technical
| reasons.
| bipson wrote:
| IIRC in its initial version it was never "mesh", but more like
| fixed multi-hop routes over one or two intermediate nodes (i.e.
| no route discovery)
| dromtrund wrote:
| This is true, but this was never really a problem for the
| adoption. Spec delays, no firmware upgrade support, and most
| importantly no proper backing by phone or gateway vendors.
| Thread and matter seem to have fumbled their opportunity
| though, so it might not be too late.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| Looking at the landscape of products at the local Home Depot or
| Lowes, it seems like most offerings are Wifi Only, need
| internet access, and require use of some proprietary app. The
| cynic in me thinks this is by design to lock people in to
| needing additional services (aka revenue streams)
|
| I grabbed a bunch of _very cheap_ (via aliexpress) zigbee based
| products, and have been amazed at how well they can work. I
| find myself wishing I could find more ZigBee based devices
| locally (US-Based, at common retailers) in order to more
| quickly implement and build up more automation.
| xfalcox wrote:
| Can you share some of those ZigBee products? I'm looking into
| getting started on that, but Costa has been holding me back.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| I can recommend to search through the homeassistant
| subreddit, thats often a good starting point at least
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/
| nick__m wrote:
| Search tuya zigbee on aliexpress, avoid tuya wifi as that
| requires an app that is managed in China. All the tuya
| zigbee devices I bought (lights, plugs, and temperature/
| humidity sensors) are reliably controlled locally by
| homeassistant and they appear to be durable.
| rkangel wrote:
| One reason is that ZigBee got there first. It was the
| established player, people had worked around the wrinkles and
| it was generally pretty good. And you have a network effect of
| installed devices.
|
| The main advantage (AFAIK) of BLE mesh is that your radio can
| also easily do normal BLE which can be helpful e.g. to talk to
| phones. This hasn't (so far) been enough to make it worthwhile
| to switch from ZigBee.
| theultdev wrote:
| Homekit uses bluetooth mesh.
|
| It's the main reason I chose it, no wifi for anything.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| It uses Thread (mesh) or Bluetooth (but I believe direct to
| phone/hub, no mesh)
| declaredapple wrote:
| Zigbee already filled it's space as a solid meshing network,
| and wifi took the "no hub" solution and worked well enough for
| most people.
|
| The radios for both, especially with the esp8266 were very
| cheap before bluetooth was at all.
|
| Then all the big players started working on defining
| Thread/Matter which was in many ways the successor to Zigbee
| (or is positioned to be).
| karpatic wrote:
| Licensing is an issue for me. I don't want to pay to use name
| 'Bluetooth'. That being said who would buy an "IEEE 802.15.1
| compliant" or "IEEE 802.15.1 enabled" device? No real way about
| getting clever about it like calling it "cyan enamel"
| luksamer wrote:
| Mesh Usa
| declaredapple wrote:
| What type of bot even is this? It makes 2 words that make no
| sense?
|
| Even phi-2b could make better responses then this.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| It can also comment the wrong price
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38972341
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I'd love to see some kind of passive M:M mesh networking
| technology picked up by iPhone.
|
| Sending a iMessage over an E2E mesh network, completely bypassing
| the internet and censorship devices.
| wslh wrote:
| ELI5: What is the benefit of using Bluetooth for Mesh instead of
| WiFi? Generally speaking? I assume one is about energy
| consumption. WiFi has more coverage, right?
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| Assuming we're talking about IoT applications: Lower power
| (better battery life), less congestion on Wi-Fi channels, no
| fussing over IPv4/subnets/etc., smaller attack surface (it
| isn't a trojan horse to your LAN), simpler setup/enrollment
| procedure than dealing with WiFi authentication. Most of these
| things are true with Zigbee/Z-Wave/Thread too, with the
| exception of being able to use a smartphone to directly connect
| and manage devices.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-12 23:00 UTC)