Telink adds support for Bluetooth mesh networks

Article By : Telink Semiconductor

Telink's software development kit that not only meets standard specs but enables real-time updates and synchronised control for applications such as lighting, healthcare and industrial control.

Telink Semiconductor has introduced a software development kit that is fully compatible with the new Bluetooth SIG specification supporting mesh networking capability.

Managed flood

Bluetooth mesh networking utilises a managed flood approach for message transmission, which is a form of message relay suited to low-power wireless mesh networks, especially those handling a significant amount of multicast traffic. This makes flood-based message relay an ideal approach for the reliability, scalability and performance requirements of commercial and industrial markets.

Telink has been offering its own proprietary Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) mesh networking protocol for several years. Last year, the company announced that its BLE SoC chip and mesh technology are being used in connected LED light bulbs from GE Lighting, in its C by GE products.

Bluetooth plus

The company has started providing an additional SDK fully compatible with the new Bluetooth SIG mesh specification. Aside from meeting the standard specification, Telink’s devices are able to update in real-time with complete and efficient presence information sharing on the network to reflect multiple nodes’ status automatically. Telink mesh also supports a synchronised control mechanism within multiple or large mesh networks, which in a smart lighting application for example can guarantee a large number of lights to be on/off or controlled at exactly same time.

The additional features offered by Telink Semiconductor are important in many applications that use many-to-many device communications. In smart home control for example, its BLE mesh technology can support multiple terminals to control multiple smart devices simultaneously in real time. Using Telink’s patented network traffic control technology, it enables the system to update and reflect the status of multiple smart devices on every control terminal in time and automatically; without this, it could result in inconsistent control and might lead to devices and controllers not being in in sync.

Telink Semiconductor provides customers with a number of different mesh development kits according to their design requirements and capabilities, either as a turnkey solution or as a reference design. This includes a full set of development tools for Bluetooth mesh applications, including reference schematics and layouts, integrated software development kit (SDK), tool chains and reference application source codes.