Partly right on the radio half. Contiki-NG does have IPv6 multicast for RPL networks: two engines, SMRF and MPL. You turn one on at build time in the nodes’ project-conf.h and in the border router’s:
/* every node and the border router */
#define UIP_MCAST6_CONF_ENGINE UIP_MCAST6_ENGINE_MPL
/* for SMRF instead you also need storing mode with multicast: */
/* #define UIP_MCAST6_CONF_ENGINE UIP_MCAST6_ENGINE_SMRF */
/* #define RPL_CONF_MOP RPL_MOP_STORING_MULTICAST */Where he’s right is that the stock rpl-border-router does not forward multicast arriving from the outside network into the mesh. So the multicast has to originate on the border router itself: a small process on that box that, on a command from Hermetry, sends one MPL datagram to a group the nodes joined. It means reflashing all 30 nodes with multicast enabled, which on a cold store install is a site visit.
Honestly, for 30 nodes I’d skip multicast. Have the border router loop over the 30 addresses and send unicast with a retry. 30 small packets on a mesh is nothing, it finishes in seconds, and every node acks so you know who missed it. No reflash.
Then in Hermetry: add a command like sampling.set with a period_s parameter on the gateway’s profile, answer it from that process once all nodes acked, and put two buttons on the QA dashboard. Have the nodes report their current period as a client attribute so QA can see it took.