Users Manual

Document:
SHARKY - User’s Guide 2020/11/18
Doc: UG_MDX-STWBx, Rev 1.7
pag. 9 of 38
3.2. BLE Mesh Technology overview
Figure 3. BLE Mesh Topology
Borrowing from the original Bluetooth specification, the Bluetooth SIG defines several profiles
— specifications for how a device works in a particular application — for low energy devices.
Manufacturers are expected to implement the appropriate specifications for their device in
order to ensure compatibility. A device may contain implementations of multiple profiles.
Majority of current low energy application profiles is based on the generic attribute profile
(GATT), a general specification for sending and receiving short pieces of data known as
attributes over a low energy link. Bluetooth mesh profile is the exception to this rule as it is
based on General Access Profile (GAP).
Bluetooth mesh profiles use Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate with other Bluetooth Low
Energy devices in the network. Each device can pass the information forward to other
Bluetooth Low Energy devices creating a "mesh" effect. For example, switching off an entire
building of lights from a single smartphone.
Conceptually, the Bluetooth Mesh Standard is defined as a publish/subscribe model where
publishers can publish to a certain topic and subscribers can subscribe to one or more topics
of interest.
This concept is used as an inspiration for the implementation in the standard. A node in a
Bluetooth Mesh network can subscribe to one or more addresses (stored in the subscriber
list) and publish to one specific address (stored in the publish address).