Building automation
Industrial grade low power wireless connectivity for building automation and sensor networks
Smart sensing, smarter spaces: Sunricher’s Bluetooth Mesh PIR sensor and Nordic’s nRF54L15 SoC
How Sunricher built a commercial Bluetooth Mesh occupancy sensor around Nordic’s ultra-low-power Bluetooth LE SoC, the nRF54L15, to bring wireless control to legacy 0–10V commercial lighting
Founded in 2007, Chinese firm Sunricher (Shenzhen Sunricher Technology Co., Ltd.) has spent 19 years building smart lighting control solutions for commercial, hospitality, and residential markets. Its portfolio spans smart LED drivers that support Zigbee and Bluetooth® Mesh dimming for smart lighting; controllers and sensors (including PIR (Passive Infrared) motion, microwave radar, and ambient light); and end-to-end lighting platforms supporting Matter, HomeKit, Alexa, and Google Home.
As a B2B company, Sunricher serves OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) partners of international lighting brands such as Philips, Osram, and Acuity Brands, as well as smart lighting platform providers like CASAMBI and SILVAIR. It also serves commercial lighting contractors and system integrators. Its solutions serve end-users through hotel-room automation, retail-space energy management, office lighting, and high-end residential smart lighting enabled by Bluetooth Mesh networks.
“Beyond standard products, we offer quite a few things to help our customers accelerate their product intelligence upgrades,” adds Romeo Chen, Product Manager at Sunricher.
A Bluetooth Mesh PIR sensor for legacy 0–10V lighting
Sunricher’s BLE To 0–10V Ceiling Mounted AC PIR Sensor with 10A Relay (model SR-BL9030B-PIR-LBV) is a ceiling-mounted Bluetooth Mesh PIR sensor that turns lights on/off and dims them based on motion and ambient light, using a 0–10V dimming output plus a 10A relay and running on 100–277V AC for retrofit-friendly commercial installations. It uses Bluetooth Mesh lighting models to extend control across devices, supports wireless wall switches (including kinetic/EnOcean options), and offers features such as sensitivity tuning and an easy reset for reliable occupancy detection in large spaces.
For their sensor, Sunricher chose to use the Nordic’s next-generation ultra-low-power nRF54L15 System-on-Chip (SoC).
Our collaboration with Nordic has been very positive overall….for projects requiring high-reliability Bluetooth Mesh networking, stringent power consumption, or future protocol compatibility, Nordic is our first-choice recommendation.
Romeo Chen, Product Manager, Sunricher
Building a reliable Bluetooth Mesh occupancy sensor
Designing a commercial-grade Bluetooth Mesh PIR sensor puts unusual demands on the wireless component.
When evaluating SoCs for the new Bluetooth LE PIR sensor, Sunricher needed to prioritize five dimensions: wireless performance and stability; power efficiency; protocol compatibility and ecosystem support; hardware-level security; and long-term supply commitments.
“Bluetooth Mesh networks demand high RF performance and interference resilience, especially in commercial environments where Wi Fi, Zigbee, and other protocols coexist,” explains Chen.
Power efficiency is critical. Sensors must run reliably for years, and consumption directly affects competitiveness and user experience. Beyond raw performance, the team needed full support for standard Mesh and forward compatibility with mainstream ecosystems such as Matter, keeping the 0-10V dimming PIR sensor Bluetooth pathway interoperable and future-ready.
Also, with tightening cybersecurity regulations, including the EU’s RED Directive and the U.S. FCC Part 15, hardware-level security is mandatory. And because industrial lighting products typically have lifespans of 5-10 years, long-term supply is key for large-scale Bluetooth Mesh PIR sensor rollouts.
Why Nordic
Nordic was Sunricher’s first choice for its solution, selecting the nRF54L15 SoC to power the Bluetooth LE PIR sensor platform.
“Based on our prior collaboration experience and our confidence in Nordic’s technical expertise in Bluetooth Mesh, we selected Nordic directly at the project initiation stage without conducting a multi-vendor comparison,” explains Chen.
The nRF54L15 is optimized for ultra-low-power, high-performance Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth Mesh, Thread, Matter, and 2.4 GHz proprietary applications. Built on a low-leakage 22 nm process, it combines a 128 MHz Cortex-M33 and a 128 MHz RISC-V coprocessor with ample memory, delivering strong RF performance and efficiency for Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth Mesh occupancy detection in smart lighting Bluetooth Mesh networks.
Key capabilities that benefit the Bluetooth Mesh PIR sensor include network stability (−96 dBm sensitivity and up to +8 dBm TX), low current consumption to keep standby under a sub-0.5 W budget, hardware security (TrustZone, secure key storage, tamper detection, cryptographic acceleration), and protocol headroom for features like LE Audio and Bluetooth Channel Sounding. Together, these bolster the 0-10V dimming PIR sensor Bluetooth application in diverse commercial sites.
Measurable results
With the Nordic nRF54L15 SoC, Sunricher reports gains across its Bluetooth LE PIR sensor line. This includes:
- stable operation across 100+ node meshes
- trigger-to-light latency dropping from ~200 ms to under 80 ms – a 60% reduction
- roughly 35% lower average power for future battery variants
- faster certification with standard Mesh Dimming and Occupancy models, improving interoperability for smart lighting Bluetooth Mesh deployment
Moving forward
With Nordic’s nRF54L15 SoC, Sunricher’s Bluetooth Mesh PIR sensor delivers occupancy-driven, energy-saving lighting over existing 0–10V systems. This reduces wasted light, improves comfort, and eases code compliance. As a forward-looking 0-10V dimming PIR sensor Bluetooth solution, it anchors Bluetooth LE Mesh occupancy detection today and paves the way for indoor positioning and LE Audio tomorrow. The result is a scalable Bluetooth Mesh PIR sensor family that advances Bluetooth Mesh control for smart lighting across commercial environments.
As Chen summarizes, “Our collaboration with Nordic has been very positive overall. Professional, efficient, and forward-looking. For projects requiring high-reliability Bluetooth Mesh networking, stringent power consumption, or future protocol compatibility, Nordic is our first-choice recommendation.”
- About Nordic Semiconductor
- About Sunricher
- About the BLE to 0-1V Ceiling Mounted AC PIR Sensor With 10A Relay
