Glossary

Use this glossary when terms appear before they feel intuitive.

How to use this page

• If you are blocked by terminology, skim the relevant entry and return to the guide you were on.
• If you are new to mesh, read Core Concepts first and use this page as lookup.

A

Address

The destination for mesh messages. It can target one element, a group, or a virtual destination.

Application key

A key used to secure model-level messages. If model commands fail, key binding is often the first thing to verify.

B

Bearer

The transport path that carries mesh traffic between your app and a device.

C

Connection manager

The mesh.connection surface on MeshNetworkManager. It is responsible for scanning for provisioned proxy devices, tracking connection state, and opening proxy connections.

E

Element

A functional part of a node. One physical device can expose multiple elements.

Each element owns one or more models, which is why a single physical device can support several behaviors.

G

Group

An address that lets one message target many devices at once.

M

Model

The behavior surface attached to an element. Models define supported commands and state.

If a node is the device, a model is one capability on that device.

Mesh network

The persistent topology and security state your application works against: nodes, keys, groups, scenes, and related configuration.

Mesh manager

The runtime-configured MeshNetworkManager instance used by the docs flow.

It owns the higher-level runtime surfaces used throughout the docs, especially mesh.connection and mesh.provision.

N

Node

One physical mesh device, such as a light, switch, sensor, or gateway-connected target.

A node may contain several elements, and each element may contain several models.

P

Provisioning

The secure onboarding process that adds a new device to the mesh network.

This is more than a UI step. Provisioning changes persistent network state by assigning identity, security material, and topology information.

Provisioning manager

The mesh.provision surface on MeshNetworkManager. It is responsible for scanning for unprovisioned peripherals, opening the provisioning bearer, handling identify/capabilities/provisioning state, and reporting progress events.

Provisioned proxy

A device that is already part of the mesh network and can be discovered through the proxy connection flow. In the current docs flow, these are reported through scan:new-proxy events.

Publish

Sending a model message to an address.

S

Scan

The discovery step that finds nearby mesh-capable devices. In the current SDK flow, scanning is event-driven: the connection manager emits scan:new-proxy for provisioned devices, and the provisioning manager emits scan:new-peripheral for unprovisioned ones.

Scene

A saved multi-device state that can be recalled later.

Scenes are useful when one action should restore several devices to a known combination of states.

Subscribe

Listening for model messages sent to an address.

U

Unprovisioned peripheral

A nearby device that is advertising as not yet joined to the mesh network. In the current docs flow, these are reported through scan:new-peripheral events and then handled by the provisioning manager.

V

Virtual address

An address derived from a label UUID instead of a simple numeric group value. Use it when multiple devices should share a logical target without relying only on a manually assigned group address.

What to read next

If this page helped, the next best step is Guides for task-driven workflows.