Bluetooth Beacon Mesh Device Development Kit

Last Updated on : 2024-06-25 09:34:45download

Bluetooth Beacon Mesh Device Development Kit is built on top of TuyaOS for Bluetooth beacon mesh device development. This kit includes a host of features and standard APIs to help you develop easily, including device pairing, upstream and downstream communication, production testing, authorization, and OTA updates.

You do not need to take care of feature implementation for different chip platforms. Just working on the standard APIs, you can connect your products to the Tuya Developer Platform and make them IoT-enabled.

Protocol description

Three options are available for Bluetooth protocols: Tuya mesh (point-to-point connection), Bluetooth mesh, and beacon mesh.

Protocol	Communication mode	Feature	Application
Beacon mesh	The device communities with mobile phones or gateways through Bluetooth advertising.	Small data packets, short range, ultra-low speed, ultra-low cost, and small mesh network.	Low-cost applications such as the contact sensor, passive infrared (PIR) sensor, temperature and humidity sensor, strip lights, stick-on switch, remote control, and scene switch.
Tuya mesh	The device communities with mobile phones or gateways through Bluetooth connection.	Direct connection, low power, and fast transmission.	Wrist-worn tracker, watch, smart toothbrush, and smart body fat scale.
Bluetooth mesh	The communication conforms to Bluetooth Mesh Specifications.	Mesh topology for large-scale device networks.	Lighting products, commercial lighting systems, and smart home suits.

Resource requirements

Bluetooth beacon mesh has a compact code size compared to Tuya mesh and Bluetooth mesh. This makes it easier to port the SDK to Bluetooth Low Energy chips that support point-to-point or beacon communications, resulting in low-cost SoC applications.

Bluetooth beacon mesh SDK features:

Concise code: About 1,000 lines of code in C can run on chips with 2 KB RAM and 16 KB ROM.
Cross-platform: You can easily port the SDK to another platform by implementing only 10 or fewer hardware and Bluetooth advertising functions, thanks to the cross-hardware platform architecture.
Full functionality: Various IoT communication features include pairing and unpairing, packet fragmentation and reassembly, group management, multi-hop relaying, encryption and decryption, and security policies.

Capability map

Device management

Capability	Description
Initialization	Understanding the initialization process can help you get through Bluetooth software development. Initialization is a process where after a device enters the main function after power on, it calls a range of APIs to initialize the hardware environment, TuyaOS software, and applications. During the application initialization, take care of the sequence of API calls. Business logic is generally after the Bluetooth stacks. The dependencies for initialization vary depending on the modules.
Reset	A reset can restore a device to the settings that the device had before it was paired. If a device is reset locally, it can restore to the previous network connection after being powered off and on. This is used for network recovery after an accidental reset. If a device is removed from the mobile app, network recovery does not apply. The device is still in an unpaired state after being powered off and on.
Authorization	Only authorized Bluetooth devices can connect to the Tuya Developer Platform. Authorization is the process of writing the device identification information for authentication and pairing to the non-volatile memory (typically the flash memory) on the device. You can perform authorization by editing the code or using a host. The former is for debugging purposes, and the latter is for mass production.
Production testing	Testing in the production process helps you identify any Bluetooth hardware issues for better yield. There are PCBA testing and end product testing. In PCBA testing, communication with Bluetooth devices is established through the serial port. In end product testing, communication is over Bluetooth to test the device’s radio and peripheral functionality.

Power consumption

Capability	Description
Standard power	A standard power device can communicate in both directions and assist other nodes in forwarding data.
Ultra-low power	Ultra-low power devices such as sensors and remote controls keep their radio on during the pairing process. Once paired, the device reports data only when woken up by an interrupt or a timer, and then it immediately goes back to deep sleep.

Network capability

Capability	Description
Group	Bluetooth beacon mesh network allows for `0x0001` to `0x5FFF` groups. A node can belong to up to eight groups simultaneously.
Relay	The upstream and downstream messages can be relayed up to three hops away from the originating node.
Remote control	Beacon remote controls can operate paired or unpaired Bluetooth beacon mesh devices after code pairing. There is no need to add the remote to the Tuya-based mobile app. Due to its weak security, this feature typically applies to lights, fans, and radio-controlled cars. A Bluetooth beacon mesh device can pair with three remote controls simultaneously. A remote control supports up to six groups and one overall control. When a new remote control tries to pair with a Bluetooth beacon mesh device that already has three paired remote controls, the device will automatically unpair the earliest remote controls. The remote control is authenticated using the sampling proxy authentication strategy.
Firmware update	Devices with reprogrammable chips support OTA updates. The update file is transmitted through advertising. It takes about 10 minutes to update 40 KB firmware. OTA updates can only be sent through the gateway, not via mobile phone due to their lengthy transmission time. Dual backup prevents the device from becoming permanently unavailable in case of any exceptions during the update process. As a result, double flash memory is used.
Dual-link	A device can be added either through a mobile phone locally or a gateway. The system automatically selects either of these two links for device control.

Device driver

Capability	Description
GPIO	GPIO driver, with debugging routines. With a host, you can set a GPIO to output high or low and check the current state of a GPIO.
UART	UART driver, with debugging routines. With a host, you can set the baud rate for a UART and control a UART to send custom data.
PWM	PWM driver, with debugging routines. With a host, you can set the frequency and duty cycle of a PWM and restore a PWM to the initial state.
ADC	ADC driver, with debugging routines. With a host, you can read the value or voltage of an ADC channel and change the resolution of an ADC.
SPI	SPI driver, with debugging routines. With a host, you can control the SDI and SDO of an SPI module to receive and send custom data and change the transfer rate of an SPI module.
I2C	I2C driver, with debugging routines. With a host, you can control an I2C module to turn on an OLED screen and display custom data.
RTC	RTC driver, with debugging routines. With a host, you can set or get the RTC of a device and start or stop the RTC module.
Watchdog	Watchdog driver, with debugging routines. With a host, you can start or stop the watchdog, enable or disable automatic feeding, and test manual feeding.

Device security

Capability	Description
Security system	Tuya’s proprietary algorithms secure devices regarding connection authentication, request authorization, and command sending, with the following measures. One-device-one-key authentication mechanism: Each Bluetooth chip connected to the Tuya Developer Platform is written with a unique license for identity authentication. An encryption algorithm similar to AES-128 but with fewer operations and a low memory footprint. With an anti-replay protocol, the sender increments the sequence number by 1 for each packet it sends. Each command performs a strict self-integrity check.

Capability

Description

Security system

Tuya’s proprietary algorithms secure devices regarding connection authentication, request authorization, and command sending, with the following measures.

One-device-one-key authentication mechanism: Each Bluetooth chip connected to the Tuya Developer Platform is written with a unique license for identity authentication.
An encryption algorithm similar to AES-128 but with fewer operations and a low memory footprint.
With an anti-replay protocol, the sender increments the sequence number by 1 for each packet it sends.
Each command performs a strict self-integrity check.

Support and help

If you have any problems with TuyaOS development, you can post your questions in the Tuya Developer Forum.

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