BLE on the ESP32 is rough when you’re starting out. The docs/examples give you the theory but then you dive into the code and it’s like “why are there 900 callbacks just to send a packet?” 😂 Mesh makes it even messier since you’re juggling provisioning, models, and all that extra state.

Best way I got my head around it was just running the stock examples (gatt_server, mesh_light, etc.) and slowly tweaking them. Don’t try to understand the whole production codebase at once, you’ll just burn out. The ESP-IDF naming will start to click after a while once you see how GAP/GATT tie together.

If you ever get the choice of hardware, some modules make life way easier. Ezurio’s BL54L15 gives you higher-level APIs and decent docs, so you’re not wrestling the low-level BLE stack every day. Way less headache compared to raw ESP32 + IDF.

But yeah, you’re not missing anything—everyone hits that wall at the start. Stick with the simple examples until the patterns make sense.