Wi-Fi R-Mesh Provisioning

In practical applications, certain R-Mesh nodes (such as smart light bulbs) may not have input devices like touchscreens or keyboards, and therefore cannot join a WLAN by directly entering the SSID and password. Such nodes can join a WLAN using either of the following two provisioning methods:

Method 1: Bluetooth-Assisted Provisioning

Using a mobile app, the WLAN password is sent via Bluetooth to the R-Mesh node to be provisioned. As shown in the figure, the main steps are:

../../_images/rmesh_ble_assisted_provisioning.svg

Bluetooth-Assisted Provisioning

  1. The smartphone establishes a Bluetooth connection with the R-Mesh node.

  2. The connected R-Mesh node scans nearby WLANs and sends the list of detected WLAN SSIDs to the smartphone via Bluetooth for display.

  3. The user selects the WLAN for the R-Mesh node to join on the smartphone and enters its password. The smartphone then sends the WLAN SSID and password to the R-Mesh node via Bluetooth.

  4. The R-Mesh node uses the received SSID and password to join the WLAN.

Method 2: ZRPP Provisioning

The R-Mesh node to be provisioned can detect nearby, already network-connected R-Mesh nodes by scanning WLAN channels. If any are found, it can automatically query those nodes for the SSID and password of their WLAN using the Zero R-Mesh Provisioning Protocol (ZRPP), and then join that WLAN.

Note

“Zero” refers to “zero touch”, meaning this provisioning method requires no manual input from the user. It is fully automated by the R-Mesh nodes and can greatly reduce provisioning time when many nodes need to be provisioned.

The main steps of ZRPP are as follows:

../../_images/rmesh_zrpp.svg

Zero R-Mesh Provisioning Protocol (ZRPP)

  1. The R-Mesh node to be provisioned scans all WLAN channels in sequence. If it detects a network-connected R-Mesh node on a particular channel, it immediately stops scanning and remains on that channel.

  2. The node to be provisioned sends a ZRPP request (a WLAN data frame with a specific format) to the discovered network-connected R-Mesh node.

  3. The network-connected R-Mesh node responds with a ZRPP response (a WLAN data frame with a specific format) containing the WLAN SSID and password.

  4. The R-Mesh node to be provisioned uses the received SSID and password to join the WLAN.