Matter temperature ESP32 Raspi

[wassfila]

taken over from wassfila/wassfila#1
posted by https://github.com/esegal

Background
The current setup contains:

Dallas 1-wire temperature Sensors
Xioami BLE (temp + rh) Sensors
Simple Relays
ESP-32
Raspberry Pi
The ESP-32 provides BLE interface to the Dallas sensors and the relays. The Raspberry Pi controlls everything using a python script that runs periodically.

The Questions
My first task is to connect the Dallas sensors to a Thread mesh and have it arrive to the Raspberry Pi. It can all be with development boards for the current phase.

I read on homesmartmesh.com and I'm starting to get it, but there are still a few missing pieces for me. Any answer or tutorial links will be super helpful. Thanks!

I need the nRF52840 for Thread - but why do I need the MS88SF2?
Is this a board should I use with the nRF52840 to support 1-wire?
Using BLE I program the ESP-32 to broadcast data using services, characteristics etc. What's the Thread equivalent?
How do I program that into the nRF52840?
In the git repo - which firmware belongs to which hardware? https://github.com/nRFMesh/nRF52_Mesh/tree/master/applications
Apologies if some of the questions don't make sense - I'm trying to figure out how it all works...

[wassfila]

• nRF52840 is chip, a chip needs a high precision pcb, which needs a big lab. MS88SF2 is a module where the nRF52840 chip is already soldered with all of its critical rf components. Soldering a module on your own is possible, but the chip not. Even a module require high soldering expertise like an oven and ramp temp regulator, so best is to use an existing dev kit, unless the goal of your project is to create a pcb yourself.
• one you have a nRF52840 devkit, you can use one pin for 1-wire
• Thread is a transport protocol, BLE is an application protocol, the equivalent of BLE on Thread is Matter which defines
• the easiest way to program a matter application on nRF52840 is to use the nRF sdk examples at https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrf/tree/main/samples/matter
• I do not recommend to use nRF52_Mesh it's an old repo based on old version of nRF sdk, but to answer your quetion, the makefile defines the board to be used with a flag https://github.com/nRFMesh/nRF52_Mesh/blob/360e5f1df0bdfa53a9582f49d53c8d29efccf554/applications/01_sensortag/Makefile#L100

All in all, what I can recommend is not to try to make hardware+software all from scratch as very first experience.

• if you want to make a functional project on nRF you need to buy a functional dev kit e.g. at least https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/nrf52840-dk or this https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/nRF5340-DK
• if you want to make your own hardware, in addition to having a functional dev kit, you need a running program on the dev kit and test it or port it progressively on the new target

[esegal]

Thanks for all the advice! I'll order some dev kits and start playing around with the nRF SDK.