meaning of "relay"?

[dudududodododedede]

Wondering what the implications of setting "relay" flag to True are?

Does the system expect this device to always be powered on?

If not, is there any reason why don't always set all devices to True? Seems like it would be a benefit to have all devices be relays?

[dominikberse]

Sorry for the late reply, I did not have the time to look into this project lately. Just for anyone ending up here, I think that with every relay you increase the number of messages going around within the network. So in an ideal case, you have probably not too many relays. Also, you don't want battery powered devices to be relays. I assume that the relay function is turned off by default, because BLE mesh is designed to be low energy.

I am not a BLE mesh expert though, so if anyone knows better, please correct me.