Wifi mesh stack functions - where are they defined?

[karunt]

I'm working on a wifi mesh example and noticed that a lot of the mesh initializing functions such as esp_mesh_init(), esp_mesh_set_topology(), etc. are declared in the esp_mesh.h file, but there's no code anywhere in the esp component directories to help understand precisely how these functions work. Any guidance from the ESP team on how to find documentation on these functions would be appreciated. It's always helpful to understand what's happening under the hood to design applications that are different from ESP's own examples.

[karunt]

Any help from the ESP community on this topic would be appreciated. Thanks.

[ESP_Sprite]

The esp mesh code unfortunately is not open-source. Documentation for it can be found here and here.

[karunt]

So how are we supposed to develop applications without understanding what's going on behind the scenes? For example, how can we reduce the number of scan attempts between two MESH_EVENT_NO_PARENT_FOUND events? Currently, the default is set to 60 scans, but that's a very long time. How can we shorten it? There are so many other API customizations that are needed to work with the wifi mesh apis, and more detailed insight into these apis would be greatly appreciated.

[daiziyan]

Hi, you can refer to mesh_attempts_t struct.

Please note that this API is not a public API. Non-public APIs are not documented in the ESP-IDF Programming Guide and may not work in future upgrades.

[karunt]

Thanks. That's helpful. But you guys really need to put out better documentation on wifi mesh apis. It's really frustrating to work with it because of inadequate documentation. Frankly, it is prompting our team to consider switching to other chips with just as good a capability as Espressif's but significantly better documentation. And we already have several prototypes that we're using your chips for, but can't proceed with development effort fast enough because of lack of adequate documentation. And I think this is quite a common sentiment among the user community/

[a2800276]

Frankly, it is prompting our team to consider switching to other chips with just as good a capability as Espressif's but significantly better documentation. And we already have several prototypes that we're using your chips for, but can't proceed with development effort fast enough because of lack of adequate documentation. And I think this is quite a common sentiment among the user community/

Could you elaborate on that, please? I'd be very interested in vendors that provide the same level of free support for an excellent, inexpensive and available product as ESP, probably would not switch currently, but it would be interesting just to have a survey of which comparable devices people are using.

I also don't share the sentiment at all, I've yet to come across any vendor with even remotely comparable quality of documentation and support (caveat: for small volume customers) as Espressif.

(thank you doc & support team!)

[ESP_Sprite]

Thanks. That's helpful. But you guys really need to put out better documentation on wifi mesh apis. It's really frustrating to work with it because of inadequate documentation. Frankly, it is prompting our team to consider switching to other chips with just as good a capability as Espressif's but significantly better documentation. And we already have several prototypes that we're using your chips for, but can't proceed with development effort fast enough because of lack of adequate documentation. And I think this is quite a common sentiment among the user community/

Could you elaborate on what exactly you are missing? It's hard to file an internal ticket with 'need more documentation'.