iBeacon, Eddystone, Bluetooth, IoT sensor beacons, apps, platforms
Box-shaped beacons can be cumbersome to wear. Instead there’s a range of beacons in a watch style.
The iB001W is rechargeable via USB.
The H1 is rechargeable and also has an accelerometer that can be used for motion triggered broadcast to save battery power.
The B10 is different because it has an SOS button. It also contains an accelerometer for extra interaction possibilities.
The ABN05 is one of the smallest and measures only 23.9mm x 23.1mm.
The batteries in the beacons we sell can last from months up to 7+ years depending on the beacon, battery size and type.
While the latest power efficient SoC beacons can make more of the available battery power you might want to consider not using batteries at all so as to ease maintenance.
USB powered beacons run from any USB socket and can be plugged into other hardware such as desktops or used with any inexpensive plug-in mains USB power supply available for a few pound/dollars/euros. However, the location of the antenna so close to the desktop or power supply can cause the range and Bluetooth radio signal spread to be compromised. Some USB beacons solve this problem by using an external dipole antenna.
The Bluetooth (Class 1) standard has a maximum output power of 20dBm. (Read our article for explanation of power). Many beacons don’t use this maximum as it would quickly flatten the battery. Most only allow up to +4dBm, +6dBm or +8dBm. In most cases battery beacons are set to operate at 0dBm. An advantage of USB powered beacons is that they can emit more power than is practical with a battery. For example, the the FSC-BP109 up to 4000m.
The iB005N-SMA is no longer manufactured and has been replaced with the S1-SMA.
The S1 USB doesn’t use batteries and instead uses USB for power. The USB isn’t used to set up the beacon and the manufacturer smartphone app, via Bluetooth, is used instead. The ‘SMA’ means it has an external rather than PCB antenna which moves the antenna away from the device supplying the USB power thus providing better Bluetooth radio signal and longer range. The S1 is also available without an external antenna.
We have a few iB005N-SMA remaining in stock of you particularly need that model.
Researchers in Japan have been using iBeacons with children with PIMD/SMID’s expressive behaviours. These are children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities or severe motor and intellectual disabilities who can only communicate through movements, vocalizations, body postures, muscle tensions or facial expressions.
The researchers created a system to interpret the expressive behaviours. The system uses the ChildSIDE in app to collect behaviours of children and sends the location and environmental data to a database. The beacons allow the location to be known so that displays or interfaces can be automatically changed depending on the context. For example, a specific situation (e.g. class or playtime), location (e.g. classroom, playground, home) or time (e.g. morning, lunch breaks, evening) can be determined.
ChildSIDE provides an effective method of collecting children’s expressive behaviours with a high accuracy rate in detecting and transmitting environmental and location data.
While we stock a very large range of beacons, it’s occasionally the case that beacons needs to be customised to better suit the project. There are different types of customisation with corresponding complexity and cost. There are also different minimum quantities at which the different forms of customisation become financially viable.
The most basic customisation is setting of the settings at the factory at time of manufacture. This saves lots of time at rollout because each beacon doesn’t have to be configured using the smartphone app. If configured at the factory, beacons can still be subsequently updated if there’s a change of some sort.
The settings typically include setting the beacon id, power and advertising period. Labels are also usually attached to the beacons so they they can be visually identified. Configuration at the factory implies they are manufactured to order which typically takes 4-6 weeks depending on the factory and time of year. The minimum quantity is usually about 200 to 300 units. We also manually configure smaller quantities for clients but this is much more expensive per unit.
The next level of customisation is changing the colour of the case and/or branding the beacon with a logo. Again, the minimum quantity is usually of the order of 200 to 300 units.
Some customers need the case to be a specific size, shape or to be, for example, more rugged. It’s also possible to re-specify some of the inside components to improve ruggedness, particularly when beacons are to be used under vibration.
Custom cases are much more time consuming and can take 3-6 months. The beacon usually has to be re-certified that’s also time consuming and expensive. Case modifications are usually only financially viable for tens of thousands of beacons.
The final type of customisation is to have non-standard software. This might include new sensors or use existing sensors in innovative ways. This usually takes of the order of 3-6 months software development. Software can be flashed manually onto small numbers of devices but the software image is usually eventually sent to the factory for putting into the beacon at the time of manufacture. Because of the software development cost, this is usually only financially viable for tens of thousands of beacons.
For all customisations, it’s possible to have samples but the factory always needs payment upfront for the full shipment. For very large custom orders we can work on a consultancy basis. We use our skills and expertise to effectively communicate with suitable manufacturers and tie down your specification after which we hand over to you to purchase direct to save costs.
We have been involved in a few projects where there have been 100s of Bluetooth beacons in one place at the same time as opposed to, the more normal, 10s at a time. We have found detection times to be significantly longer. Until now, we have found it difficult to quantify this behaviour.
We have found some research, funded by Samsung, on the Analysis of Latency Performance of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Networks. The research contains lots of theoretical predictions backed up with experimental data that show how the time to detect varies with the number of scanners, number of advertisers, the scan window size, the advertisement period and the advertising interval:
The research concludes that when the number of Bluetooth devices increases, delays in device discovery show an exponential growth even when using multiple advertising channels and small frame sizes.
The authors say:
“We find that the inappropriate parameter settings considerably impair the efficiency of BLE devices, and the wide range of BLE parameters provides high flexibility for BLE devices to be customized for different applications.”
So what typical parameter settings might affect the detection time? What’s really going on? If you look at beacon advertising it transmits for about a millisecond every configurable advertising period (typically 100ms to 1 sec):
In simple terms, if two beacons happen to transmit on the same channel, at a similar time, then the transmissions will collide and receiving device will see corrupted data. The receiver will have to wait for its next scan to possibly see the beacon(s) and this increases the detection time. The chances of collision increase as the number of devices increase and decrease as the beacon advertising period increases.
Note that if two beacons collide and have the same advertising interval, it doesn’t mean they will collide next time. The advertising interval has a small amount of randomisation added to make this less likely to happen.
The Jockey Club Centre for Positing Ageing in Hong Kong has been working with The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and St James Settlement to create a system to aid the search for older people with dementia who get lost.
The solution works on the premise that people who get lost generally go to places where there are other people. A Bluetooth beacon-based device is detected by an app installed by 23,400 ‘dementia angels’. They receive an alert when someone is lost and are asked to turn on Bluetooth and location. When the lost person is detected the location is anonymously sent to a cloud server and then to the caregiver to aid with searching.
The beacon comes in several forms including suitable for putting into a wallet or attached to a walking stick. In 45 out of 131 lost episodes, the caregivers were able to use the technology to help search for their relatives with dementia.
87% of caregivers thought that the iBeacon was easy to carry for the people with dementia and 82% observed that their relatives with dementia were willing to carry the iBeacon. 79% of caregivers were satisfied with the durability of the iBeacon and 75% thought that the designated mobile app was easy to use. In addition, 74% of caregivers trusted data security. The overall programme satisfaction rate was 85%, revealing that they held a positive view of using this technology in their daily lives to prevent getting lost.
There’s new research into a home people tracking system to detect people who are isolated at home. The context is home isolation due to Covid but this could equally be used for people with limited mobility who need to stay indoors.
The idea is to use Bluetooth rather than visual, camera-based monitoring. Smart bracelets are used that can also monitor position, blood oxygen and heart rate.
The system can also send early warning signals to organisations or relatives through instant messaging software.
The system is implemented using ESP32 single board computers and a Raspberry Pi for data collection.
This uses MQTT, Node-Red and a database.
There’s new research from Oregon State University, USA and Peking University, Beijing, China on A Machine Learning Approach to Improve Ranging Accuracy with AoA and RSSI.
Machine learning was used to determine the line-of-sight distance in a multipath (reflective) environment. Due to the multipath effect, acquired signals indoors have complex mathematical models. A machine learning Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) is the most efficient way to process these signals.
The system achieved accuracy where 75% of the errors were less than 0.1 m with a median error of 0.037 m and a mean error of 0.092 m. This reduced ranging errors to under 10cm. The researchers were able to achieve high-precision indoor ranging without the need for a wide signal bandwidth nor synchronisation. The system was also simple and low cost to deploy due to low complexity of the equipment.
Since we have been selling the AKMW-iB003N-SHT and AKMW-iB004N PLUS SHT we have been getting a few questions regarding accessing the temperature and humidity data.
You should first read the manufacturer’s SHT20 User Guide (username and password supplied with your beacon).
If you are connecting via GATT to read the sensor data then you will need to set the beacon to be always connectable. The way to do this is (for some strange reason) only shown in the iB001M user guide:
So if you wish to transmit iBeacon and remain connectable, set the value to 0x82. Note that if you subsequently set the beacon ‘on’ or ‘off’ in the ‘simple’ configuration screen, accessed via the spanner icon (Android) or Configure option (on iOS), then this will overwrite your set value.
However, you might instead consider reading the sensor data from the advertising data which a) is much easier to program and b) uses much less beacon battery power and c) allows multiple apps to see the data at the same time.
There’s also an iOS example app in the BeaconZone AnkhMaway technical area.