[Feature Request] Support for Thread protocol through code from upstream OpenThread?

[RockerC]

I already asked this question in an independent ESP8266 forum but I'm thinking that this question would be better addressed to Espressif themselves about ESP32:

The question is; Are there any plans by Espressif for adding support the "Thread" networking protocol in ESP32 (and/or in ESP8266)?

Due to it being royalty-free and backed by many industry giants, the Thread protocol is likley to quickly become one of the (if not THE most) popular cross-manufacturer industry standard for WiFi-based communication between IoT devices. Since the "Thread Group" alliance was announced, the board members of the working group now consists of companies from Nest Labs (a subsidiary of Alphabet/Google), Samsung, ARM Holdings, Qualcomm, NXP Semiconductors/Freescale, Silicon Labs, Big Ass Solutions, Somfy, OSRAM, Tyco International, and the lock company Yale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(network_protocol)

Also, now that "OpenThread" has been released as the semi-official but independent free and open-source implementation of the Thread networking protocol, as released by Nest Labs, would it be a good idea to implement Thread support in ESP32 (and/or in ESP8266) through this OpenThread library and use as upstream dependency because it will keep getting maintained there?

https://github.com/openthread/openthread

The BSD licensed C++ source code includes supports for End Device, Router, Leader & Border Router roles, and can be found on Github. The implementation is said to be OS and platform agnostic with a radio abstraction layer, have a small footprint, and implement all Thread networking layers, namely IPv6, 6LoWPAN, IEEE 802.15.4 with MAC security, Mesh Link Establishment, and Mesh Routing. To quickly get started you can may to read the Examples README which explains how to build the code, start two nodes, and ping them.

https://github.com/openthread/openthrea ... /README.md

Another related idea to help a such initiative could for Espressif to start a crowd-sourcing campign on for example Kickstarter or IndieGoGo to add Thread networking protocol support to ESP32, as well as release a reference module as a ESP32 development board with Thread support, and as a stretch goal also join the Thread Group Alliance group:

http://www.threadgroup.org/joinus

[WiFive]

Thread is not for wifi (802.11). Thread runs on 802.15.4 which, even though there several chipsets out there that do both Bluetooth (802.15.1) and 802.15.4, ESP32 most likely cannot support it.

You can maybe use ESP32 and an 802.15.4 transceiver to build a thread border router, but I wouldn't expect espressif to provide any reference implementation.

Once you have a thread network and border router, other wifi devices can talk to thread devices over ipv6. So really the only question is will the ESP32 SDK support ipv6.

[ESP_Sprite]

FYI we're aware of this protocol and internally discussing it. Doing this with the ESP32 is not as simple as just whacking another stack in it; the modulation of this protocol is different than WiFi. We may be able to work around that in some way or another, but figuring that out will take some time.

[chromebin]

Hello, a year has passed since [Support for Thread protocol through code from upstream OpenThread](viewtopic.php?t=142), could you please give an update on the status of support for the Thread protocol and 6lowpan?

I saw it [mentioned](viewtopic.php?f=2&t=221&p=1028) that you won't be supporting the 802.15.4 required, but I could not find an official statement.

Second, if there was no progress, could this protocol be used over standard Wifi modulation instead? Or, is there another mesh solution worth using?

[ESP_Sprite]

As far as I know, there aren't any current plans to support this protocol. You may be able to run it over WiFi or ESPNow as well, I do not know enough about OpenThread to say anything about that.