I'd like to use Raspberry Pi 4 to collect data from several BLE mesh supported devices (beacons) that uses a chip like nRF52832, nRF52833 or nRF52840.
I know that Pi 4 comes with bluetooth 5.0.
My question is, can I use Pi 4 as it is without any hat, cape etc. connected to collect data from the beacons that uses those chips and communicates by using the BLE mesh technology.
Yes, you should be able to use the Raspberry Pi for mesh functionality depending on the version of BlueZ that is available there. Mesh functionality was initially added in BlueZ v5.47 (September 2017) and subsequent versions of BlueZ have had bug fixes and additions to this feature. You can find more information here:-
You can check the version of BlueZ that is on your Raspberry Pi through the following command:-
bluetoothctl --version
I hope this helps.