Remote provisioning (PB-remote) allows a provisioner to provision devices located outside of the provisioner's radio range. This is done by using Bluetooth mesh nodes to relay provisioning messages to a node within the range of the remote device that is to be provisioned.

Remote provisioning topology

The PB-Remote functionality is provided by the PB-remote client and the PB-remote Server models.

For more information about the PB-remote APIs, see the Remote provisioning APIs section and the PB-remote API group.

Table of contents

Remote provisioning process

The following figure shows the complete remote provisioning process that starts once the PB-remote client and server are initialized and provisioned with the normal provisioning procedure, with both of them in the idle state.

The provisioning process is made of the following steps:

To find out remote unprovisioned devices, the application can request that the PB-remote client instruct the PB-remote server to start scanning for unprovisioned devices by calling pb_remote_client_remote_scan_start().
The PB-remote server starts scanning for the unprovisioned devices and reports back the observed UUIDs.
The application can then select the desired UUID and instruct the PB-remote client to start the remote provisioning process by calling nrf_mesh_prov_provision() API, with bearer_type set to NRF_MESH_PROV_BEARER_MESH.
After this call, the PB-remote client requests that the PB-remote server open the provisioning link with the unprovisioned device.
Once the link is opened, the PB-remote client executes the rest of the provisioning process by transferring provisioning PDUs to the server, which are then sent by the server to the unprovisioned device. The PB-remote server also receives the PDUs from the unprovisioned device and forwards them to the PB-remote client.

The process ends with successful provisioning of an unprovisioned device, and with the return of the client and server devices to the idle state.

Figure 1. Remote provisioning overview.

Remote provisioning APIs

This section outlines the provisioning process phases you need to take into account to implement the PB-remote client and the PB-remote server in your application.

You can also check the PB-remote example for implementation details.

Client APIs

The PB-remote client model provides a remote provisioning bearer and a set of APIs for performing scanning using the PB-remote server.

To use the PB-remote client in your application, implement the following steps:

Initialize the PB-remote client by calling pb_remote_client_init().
Add the remote provisioning bearer to the Bluetooth mesh stack:
- Call nrf_mesh_prov_bearer_add() and provide a statically-allocated provisioning context structure and the remote provisioning bearer reference. The reference is obtained by calling pb_remote_client_bearer_interface_get().
Start the remote scanning by calling pb_remote_client_remote_scan_start(). After the scanning starts, the PB-remote server will report the observed UUIDs to the client and the client will generate the PB_REMOTE_EVENT_REMOTE_UUID event.
- The unprovisioned device's UUID is provided as an event parameter. Your application can store this information to use at later point in time.
Stop the remote scanning by calling pb_remote_client_remote_scan_cancel().
Start the remote provisioning by calling nrf_mesh_prov_provision() and provide the provisioning context, the pointer to UUID, and the attention duration.

Server APIs

The PB-remote Server model provides a remote provisioning bearer and a set of APIs for performing scanning using the PB-remote server.

To use the PB-remote server in your application, implement the following steps:

Initialize the PB-remote server by calling pb_remote_server_init().
Enable the server by calling pb_remote_server_enable().
- The application can disable the PB-remote server when it is not needed by calling pb_remote_server_disable().
Add the provisioning bearer to the PB-remote server:
- Call pb_remote_server_prov_bearer_set() and provide the PB-ADV provisioning bearer reference. The local reference is obtained by calling nrf_mesh_prov_bearer_adv_interface_get().

The provisioning and scanning process is controlled by the peer PB-remote client and your application does not need to take any other action.