Telink SDK supports Bluetooth mesh

Telink Semiconductor of Shanghai has added Bluetooth mesh support to its chips with a software design kit (SDK) - Bluetooth mesh formerly released by the Bluetooth SIG recently, and is a firmware-only change for Bluetooth 4.0 hardware and later.

By Steve Bush , Electronics Weekly, Aug. 01, 2017 – 

"Bluetooth has traditionally been known and established for point-to-point communications - pairing devices with each other to be able to communicate," said the firm, "but with mesh networking support, it opens up the use of Bluetooth for 'many-to-many'or multicast traffic device communications, making it suitable for implementing mesh networks in beacons, robotics, industrial automation, energy management, smart city applications, and other industrial IoT and advanced manufacturing solutions."

The SIG-specified meshing adds to the proprietary Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) mesh networking protocol that Telink Semiconductor has been offering to customers - as used in the 'C'family of connected LED light bulbs from GE Lighting.

Bluetooth mesh networking uses a 'managed flood'approach for message transmission, which is a simple form of message relay that is uniquely suited for low-power wireless mesh networks, especially those handling a significant amount of multicast traffic, according to Telink, which suits it to commercial and industrial markets.

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