Commissioning of lighting devices

A wireless node for communicating in a network and being configured to operate according to a wireless networking protocol of said network, said wireless node comprising:

• a receiver to receive a discovery request broadcast wirelessly using said wireless networking protocol, wherein according to said protocol said wireless node is configured to only respond to the discovery request as broadcast from an initiating unit on condition of being within a predetermined range of the initiating unit;
• a measurement unit configured to determine whether said wireless node is within said predetermined range, and wherein said predetermined range being defined by a received signal strength indicator of the received discovery request from the initiating unit (100) being above a predetermined threshold;
• a transceiver adapted for responding to the discovery request upon determination that the wireless node is within said predetermined range of the initiating unit and cause the wireless node to join the wireless network,
• wherein the wireless node is configured to act as a relaying node upon determination that the wireless node is within said predetermined range of the initiating unit and a non-zero remaining hop count is detected in the received discovery request, so as to re-broadcast the discovery request for receipt by one or more out-of-range nodes that are not within out-of-said predetermined range of said initiating unit (100), and
• wherein acting as an in-range relaying node (1-3), the wireless node is further configured to decrement the hop count in the re-broadcast discovery request.

A system comprising:

• a plurality of nodes to potentially be joined to a wireless network, each of said plurality of nodes being configured to operate according to a wireless networking protocol of said network, and each being a component device of a lighting system, with at least some of said plurality of nodes comprising illumination sources;
• and
• an initiating unit arranged to wirelessly broadcast a discovery request using said wireless networking protocol, wherein according to said protocol each of said plurality of nodes is configured to only respond to the discovery request as broadcast from the initiating unit on condition of being within a predetermined range of the initiating unit, wherein said predetermined range being defined by a received signal strength indicator of the discovery request from the initiating unit (100) being above a predetermined threshold;
• wherein each respective one of said plurality of nodes is configured so that:
• if the respective node determines itself to be one of one or more in-range nodes within said predetermined range of the initiating unit, to respond to the discovery request from the initiating unit and thereby join the wireless network, and if the respective node receives the broadcast but determines itself to be one of one or more out-of-range nodes that is not within said predetermined range of said initiating unit, not to respond to the discovery request from the initiating unit;
• wherein each of said plurality of nodes is further configured so as, when one of the in-range nodes, to act as a relaying node upon detecting a non-zero remaining hop count in the received discovery request to re-broadcast the discovery request for receipt by one or more of the out-of-range nodes, and decrement the hop-count in the re-broadcast discovery request, and when one of the out-of-range nodes receiving the re-broadcast discovery request determines whether it is within a predetermined number of hops based on the remaining hop count as received in the re-broadcast discovery request;
• and
• wherein each of said plurality of nodes is further configured so as, if one of the out-of-range nodes, only respond to the re-broadcast discovery request on conditions of being within the predetermined range of a corresponding sender out of said in-range relaying nodes (1-3) and within the predetermined number of hops of the initiating unit, thereby joining the wireless network.