There is no BLE hard limit to device connections here at all.
This whole system works on advertising packets. Beacons are non-connectable, aptly named.
Your phone can be connected n number of BLE devices and also appear to be n number of peripherals itself. No hard limit that I can think of, usually just depends on the stack.
But this isn’t that. This is your phone pumping out <CONTACT: I am 7733> and listening for other people’s phones to say <CONTACT: I am xxxx>.
I can think of no stack that has a connection limit and after that stops allowing for reception of advertising packets.
Nitpicky clarification: at least for the Apple/Google spec it's advertising something more like "my key for the current 15-minute timespan is 7733". ie, not your identity, just a temporary key.
I believe that Bluetooth units are limited to 1 central (master/server/upstream) and 7 peripheral (slave/client/downstream) connections. Mesh networks can be made up of up to 255 units.
Advertising is different, and not limited, but it is not classified as a 'connection'. My understanding is that advertisements are simply broadcast, so there is no bidirectional communication.
I thought I had seen multi master stacks. For peripherals I know I’ve seen 20 concurrent this n the Nordic S132, definitely not 8 as any BLE spec limitation.
Yes. That’s what I said, beacons are advertising packeting with the connectable flag cleared.
You misunderstood, there is no bidirectional in my post. Just two transmitters and two receivers.
This whole system works on advertising packets. Beacons are non-connectable, aptly named.
Your phone can be connected n number of BLE devices and also appear to be n number of peripherals itself. No hard limit that I can think of, usually just depends on the stack.
But this isn’t that. This is your phone pumping out <CONTACT: I am 7733> and listening for other people’s phones to say <CONTACT: I am xxxx>.
I can think of no stack that has a connection limit and after that stops allowing for reception of advertising packets.