Explore Bluetooth Mesh Feature Enhancements

The new Bluetooth mesh feature enhancements announced by the Bluetooth SIG will increase security, reduce power consumption, simplify setup, improve mesh network efficiency and scalability.

Directed Forwarding – Improves messaging efficiency through an additional multi-hop message delivery method that can be used on a collection of relay nodes to establish direct paths from the defined source to the destination.

Subnet Bridging – Still allows networks to include subnets for area isolation but reduces network complexity by also permitting selective communication between specific devices in different, adjacent subnets without needing to know the NetKey.

Remote Provisioning – Offers the flexibility for unprovisioned devices to be added to the network from any location within the building since provisioning can now be done with one or more hops.

Certificate-Based Provisioning – Manufacturer-provided digital certificates can now be used to authenticate the identity of devices and only authenticated devices may be allowed to connect to the network.

Automatic Device Firmware Updates – With this functionality, a device can be designated to monitor for updates, acquire the binary images for the update, and distribute the images throughout the network to update the appropriate nodes.

Private Beacons – To improve security and user privacy when beaconing is used, private beaconing eliminates the possibility of static information becoming visible in beacon messages.