PineSocket

[Avamander]

There's currently a minor issue that came up in the PineTime chat - that there isn't an affordable, nicely available and open platform for building a Bluetooth LE mesh network. It would be a very nice supplement the PineTime, but BT Mesh wouldn't be limited to just it.

The idea in general was that it would be nice to have something similar to the Sonoff S26/S20 - a hackable mains-powered home automation device. But with the ability to build a Bluetooth mesh. If the device were to use e.g. the nRF52840, it would also make it possible to build ZigBee, 802.15.4 and Thread networks which might appeal to even more people. Having the ability to attach a few sensors to the board or having a few (optionally?) built-in (like humidity/temp/motion/illumination) would be a cherry on top.

A visualization for those that aren't familiar with the Sonoff S20:


If the price were on-par with the Sonoff S20, it would very certainly appeal to a rather considerable amount of people. 

What do you think? @tllim, do you think this idea has any merit and that it's doable?

[poVoq]

Optional (?) LoRaWan support would also be really interesting for remotely controlling 240V equipment like a water pump or such.

[JF002]

I have a use case for this kind of device:

Someday, I would like to use PineTime and InfiniTime for my home automation (based on Home-Assistant) : presence detection, temperature monitoring, light control,...

One possibility is to connect a bluetooth receiver to the RPI running Home-assistant, but the range would not cover the whole house.
Another idea is to build multiple devices (based on a NRF52 or ESP32 MCU, for example) to bridge BLE with WiFi (to connect to HA). But InfiniTime would have to connect/disconnect to all of these modules as I walk into the house...

I don't know BLE mesh, but if it allows to create a single network with nodes that repeat the signal to extend the range, I would be interested to investigate it!

[Avamander]

There was a thread on Twitter (https://twitter.com/SipeedIO/status/1319266151927435266) that mentioned a new series of Longan (RISC-V) boards. That chipset might be suitable for this use-case, assuming the vendor BT stack has BT Mesh support (or that there's an open stack that can do it).

[pfeerick]

There was a thread on Twitter (https://twitter.com/SipeedIO/status/1319266151927435266) that mentioned a new series of Longan (RISC-V) boards. That chipset might be possible to use, assuming the vendor BT stack has BT Mesh support or there's an open stack that could do it.

Yeah, that coupled with the CNX articles

https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/10/24/...ice-point/
https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/10/25/...ent-board/

make the BL602 and BL604 very much of interest... ESP8266 but done better? Can it be true? Having this chip in the PineSocket sounds perfect... Wifi and BT5, decent amount of SRAM and Flash memory, plenty of GPIOs (hopefully without a bunch that need to be held high or low at boot like the ESP8266), competitively priced, and it looks like it will support mesh!!!! How well it does is yet to be determined, but it's a start!

Bluetooth mesh features
* Supports Relay, Friend Node, Low-Power Node (LPN) and GATT Proxy roles
* Support two provisioning bearers (PB-ADV & PB-GATT)

Sounds like a perfect application for a new chip and to break into the IoT market

[Avamander]

https://twitter.com/robbrad/status/1328619684837593088

News like this are a clear indication that people would like something like what I proposed, a smart plug that isn't under the control of the vendor that much.