iBeacon, Eddystone, Bluetooth, IoT sensor beacons, apps, platforms
The Bluetooth SIG, who manage the Bluetooth standards, have a new infographic on location services based on figures from ABI Research.
Some insights:
Direction finding hardware is limited by how many Bluetooth packets can be processed per second. For example, the Minew G2/AR1 supports up to 1000 packets per second. However, this depends on the actual situation as the locator can sometimes receive packets from devices that are not tracked assets such as fitness trackers, cars and smartphones that will use up processing power.
There are two common misconceptions. The first is that it’s possible to add more hardware to support more beacons. Hardware can be added sidewise, into extra areas having extra beacons, but it’s not possible to support more beacons by adding hardware to the same area. The beacons will still be seen by all hardware. The second misconception is the use of filtering or throttling settings in the gateway to support more beacons. Again, the packets have to be processed and you are only affecting what’s being output.
How many beacons are supported by 1000 packets per second? For a beacon advertising at default 100ms, it’s advertising 10 times every second. For the Minew scenario, with 4 locators, each locator will see the beacon so the gateway works four times as hard.
1000 / 10 / 4 = 25 beacons. Only 25 beacons.
AoA Direction Finding involves a trade off between accuracy, latency and the maximum number of beacons:
The number of beacons can be increased by increasing the beacon advertising period. The Minew MWL01 beacon automatically adjusts the advertising period from 100ms to 250ms to 4 seconds based on movement detected by an accelerometer. This makes the maximum number of beacons dependent on a tricky calculation based on how often the beacons move. At the other extreme, when none of the beacons are moving, 1000 beacons can be supported in one area of 4 locators.
The beacons’ advertising period can be extended, as necessary, to increase the maximum number of beacons. When the advertising period is increased, the latency increases which is the delay after which you know the new location. Furthermore, location engines need multiple measurements, over time, to get an accurate location. This can usually be configured to trade off accuracy with latency.
If a gateway doesn’t see a beacon during scanning, it’s possible it will instead see it on a subsequent scan. Overloaded systems still produce locations but have much less deterministic latency.
When designing a new system many people say they want high accuracy, low latency and support an unlimited number of beacons. This isn’t possible. Instead, rank accuracy, latency and the maximum number of beacons in order of importance and design the system accordingly.
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We receive many enquiries for complete solutions that don’t yet exist. While we have a solutions directory, most current solutions tend to require solving a particular problem in a particular industry. In most cases the people enquiring don’t have the budget for a one-off custom solution.
There’s plenty of scope for new innovative solutions based on beacons for re-selling to others. However, creating new systems based predominantly on beacons is costly and risky. Instead, it’s often better to beacon-enable existing systems that have been tried and tested.
The systems we are finding doing this at the moment are mainly security related. However, there’s a large number of enterprise systems that could benefit from extra features provided by beacons. Doing so is less risky and more likely to be successful as it builds on something that’s already being used. Another observation is that when companies do this, they sometimes realise they have actually implemented their first IoT system.
When choosing a beacon with an accelerometer, care needs to be taken that it supports the anticipated use. In some cases the accelerometer can control the functionality within the beacon while in other’s it provides raw data that can be used by other Bluetooth devices such as smartphones, gateways and single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi.
The most common use of an accelerometer is to provide for motion triggered broadcast. This is when the beacon only advertises when the beacon is moving so as to improve battery life and lessen the redundant processing needed by observing devices. Beacons supporting motion triggering include the M52-SA Plus, F1, K15, and the H1 Wristband.
A few beacons such as the iBS01G and iBS03G interpret the movement as starting, stopping and falling with a consequent change in Bluetooth advertising.
Raw acceleration data is provided by beacons such as the iBS01RG , iBS03RG, e8, K15 and B10.
Some people come to us, having set up their beacons, saying “It doesn’t work”. Most scenarios involve a beacon, an app and a phone. Solving most problems involves breaking the problem down by swapping out each of the beacon, app and phone until it works.
If you have more than one beacon, you can swap out the beacon. Having said this, it’s rare for beacons to fail and if the problem is with the beacon, it’s more likely to be the beacon settings that are incorrect.
While you can’t swap out the manufacturer configuration app, you can use another app such as Nordic’s nRF Connect (on iOS and Android) to scan for a beacon, see if it’s advertising and if so, what type of advertising it is sending.
It’s common for individual phones to have have problems. First, make sure you have Location and Bluetooth on. Anyone working with beacons will usually need to have both Android and iOS devices to diagnose problems. Run the app (and nRF Connect) on multiple phones of different platform type (iOS/Android) to help narrow down problems.
If you still can’t get it working, send us a support ticket. Please don’t just say “It doesn’t work” and instead describe what you have done and at what stage it doesn’t work with any error messages.
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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.
