Increases in Prices

The semiconductor shortage has caused beacon and gateway prices to increase, on average, by about 10%. We are now seeing prices increase even further. The resurgence of the Covid pandemic in China and lockdown of cities is now squeezing production and transportation capacity. We have already experienced some ridiculously large manufacturer transportation charges.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has halted half the World’s supply of Neon, used for semiconductor manufacture, so it’s expected there will also be further semiconductor price rises and maybe even shortages of components.

At Beaconzone we only increase prices when we have to re-stock at a higher price. If you are starting a new project, we recommend you purchase as soon as possible to lock-in costs.

Using iBeacon for Team Management

There’s useful research by Sindhumol S of Cochin University of Science and Technology, India on Implementation and Analysis of a Smart Team Management System using iOS Devices as iBeacon.

The system provides location-based task monitoring and presence detection. Task details and announcements are available when a team member enters the range of an iBeacon broadcast. The system also provides typical project management facilities such as task allocation, notification, instant chat, status reports and employee logs.

From a technical perspective, the paper describes setting the beacon measure power, the affect of distance change on accuracy and the change in accuracy/RSSI depending on obstacle blocking.

View iBeacons

Finding the Nearest Beacon

There’s new research from Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Slovenia on Improved Bluetooth Low Energy Sensor Detection for Indoor Localization Services.

While there has been lots of research into server-side processing to improve location accuracy, this research instead looks into improving accuracy locally, in terms of finding the nearest beacon. This kind of processing is often needed where smartphone apps provide users with contextual information based on their location, for example, in museums.

It’s not possible to use the raw received signal strength (RSSI) because it changes frequently due to changes in blocking and reflection in a room. Any errors in determining the correct transmitter can cause errors in displaying relevant information which, in turn, leads to a poor visitor user experience.

The study involved use of iBeacons detected by Android smartphones, both in a controlled room with three obstacles and a real-world setting Expo Museum.

The proposed algorithm stabilised the RSSI by considering previous measurements to filter out sudden fluctuation of the RSSI signal or the rapid movement of the mobile device. The smartphone’s accelerometer was also used dynamically change the scan interval based on the user’s movement.

In the controlled room, the proposed algorithm had a 14.29% better success rate than a standard algorithm using the raw RSSI values. It performed particularly (20%) better in spaces having medium or high density of physical obstacles. It also performed better in the real-world Expo environment with a success rate of 95% compared to 87% with a standard algorithm.

Inventory Management vs Asset Tracking Using RTLS

Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) can be used for both inventory management and asset tracking. Here, we explore the differences between inventory and assets and the respective benefits of using a RTLS.

Inventory is stock, parts, materials and products that move through the company while assets are equipment, fixtures and furniture the company needs to do work. Inventory tends to be sold quickly to customers and leave the company while assets tend to be be kept longer term. It’s not just companies that have inventory and stock. Organisations such as government and health agencies consume rather than sell inventory and use assets to provide services.

While there are many systems that can be used to track the quantities of inventory and assets, very few track location. Knowing you have something but not knowing where it is leads to significant inefficiencies, especially in large organisations.

Managing both inventory, assets levels and location is important to avoid shortages and the need to over-stock so as to mitigate not being able to find items. In some cases items can spoil, due to expiry dates, which makes locating them more time sensitive. RTLS provides an automatic real-time view of inventory and assets so that quantities are known when items get stolen, thrown away or otherwise leave the site.

Inventory management provides better accuracy as it’s known what is in stock so the correct quantity can be ordered to meet anticipated demand. It makes it less likely products will be oversold, when not in stock, preventing end-customer disappointment. Having optimal stock saves money. Excess stock costs money until sold that can include overheads such as storage, handling fees and insurance. Excess standing stock is also is also presents the risk of loss by theft, obsolescence and unexpected damage. A better, real-time view of stock allows demand to be analysed and optimised. Having the correct stock ultimately keeps end-customers loyal due to a better customer experience.

Asset management ensures that assets don’t have to be over-purchased to compensate for inefficiencies in finding items. Knowing you have item(s) prevents unnecessary duplicate purchases. As the RTLS is real-time there’s no need for manual audits. The automatic auditing of assets also highlights items that have become lost or stolen. Knowing where assets are ultimately reduces labour costs because employees spend less time searching.

Read about BeaconRTLS

Bluetooth Myths and Facts

There’s a useful new webinar at the Bluetooth SIG on The Myths & Facts About Bluetooth® Technology as a Positioning Radio. Fabio Belloni from Quuppa explains the main Bluetooth myths and facts:

  • Performance – There are misconceptions about accuracy, latency and reliability brought over from older systems using only received signal strength (RSSI). Newer systems based on Bluetooth direction finding provide much improved performance.
  • Communication Range & Coverage Area – People incorrectly think Bluetooth is a short range 10m – 15m technology. This isn’t so. Long range beacons can transmit up to 1.5Km and can work up to 100m in location finding scenarios.
  • Multipath Propagation – It’s wrongly perceived that Bluetooth is poor in harsh environments. Bluetooth is, in fact, designed for factory floor and additionally newer AoA direction finding can use spectral analysis to reduce the affect of radio reflections.

Gabriel Desjardins from Broadcom mentions how location technologies have overcome the peak of inflated expectations caused by UWB and are now in the plateau of productivity provided by Bluetooth LE.

Andrew Zignani shows the results of a survey on RTLS from 213 C-Level decision makers across five main verticals. Only 13% of businesses have already deployed RTLS and there will be a increased uptake over the next 5 years. Technology fragmentation and operational/maintenance cost are incorrectly seen as the barriers to adoption. The new Bluetooth AoA direction finding standard is easing fragmentation. The maintenance cost is actually very low compared to the ROI in most scenarios. Most want beacon battery life to be 90+ days and cost to be $11-$20 that are easily achievable with today’s beacons.

No-Code and Low-Code Development for Bluetooth Beacons

As mentioned in our article on Using Bluetooth Low Energy (LE), Bluetooth devices such as beacons repeatedly advertising their id and for sensor beacons they advertise their sensor information.

Something needs to listen which is usually a smartphone app, a gateway or a computer such as the Raspberry Pi. These devices process the advertising to show information on a map, in a dashboard or forward on to other systems, possibly as alerts. In the case of a gateway, the information is usually sent to a local server or cloud server. The app, computer or cloud server functionality usually involves custom programming but what if you could do this with no code?

There’s a general move towards using more ‘No-Code’ and ‘Low-Code’ Development. This is where common functionality is wrapped into components that are joined together using a user interface. There are many proprietary examples most of which involve subscriptions, SaaS, lock-in and unknown longevity that makes them unsuitable for enterprise grade solutions. Conversely, we are a fan of Node-RED that provides open source flow-based programming that we have used on customer projects. Don’t be deceived by the user-interface. This is not a toy and is being used in production by many companies.

Node-RED started in 2013 as a side-project by Nick O’Leary and Dave Conway-Jones of IBM’s Emerging Technology Services group. It has since been open-sourced, continually developed and it moved to the JS Foundation in 2016.

Node-RED provides a flow-based editor that allows you wire together just about any type of input, for example, Bluetooth, HTTP, MQTT to any type of output. It also has components to generate a simple UI dashboard with widgets. There’s a large number of nodes including Bluetooth that you can import and use for input, processing and output. You can develop and run on Linux or Windows. Everything is done using a web user interface. You can run on, for example, a Raspberry Pi, AWS, Azure or more usefully for Bluetooth, on edge Linux devices.

We like to use Node-RED on Mini-PC devices, such as Intel NUCs, running Linux. We don’t use Raspberry Pi because running from SD cards eventually becomes unreliable, although a recent feature does allow booting and running from any USB device. The flexibility of the hardware you can use with Node-RED contrasts with many other IoT solutions that end up being obsolete due hardware becoming end of life.

Bluetooth scanning

It’s relatively easy to set up a flow to read Bluetooth advertising. It’s also possible to use HTTP or MQTT input to receive and process data from Bluetooth gateways. We have even run AI Machine Learning, for learning and inference, within within a Node-RED flow.

Using tools such as Node-RED is quick and easy compared to coding. Node-RED is free, open-source, stable and is still being improved over time. However, there comes a stage where you eventually need to run code. Some components allow running arbitrary JavaScript to transform data from the input to output of a node. This is sometimes better than trying to connect together and configure lots of nodes to do the same thing.

Another limitation is that it’s not possible to create an installable product with Node-RED. You can export and import project flows which isn’t something you can sell as a product. The output UI is also limiting. You have to design your UI around what’s possible. More complex solutions also end up with very complex flows and sub-flows that get more difficult to understand. While you don’t need to code, you still need someone with similar analysis and problem solving skills.

For high throughput systems you will also hit performance problems. Node-RED is based on Node.js that uses a JavaScript runtime. Compiled languages such as c, c++ and Rust reduce latency, reduce CPU usage by up to 75% and memory usage by up to 95% compared to Javascript. It’s also difficult to move a solution to compiled code should that be needed in the future.

Nevertheless, Node-RED provides a no-code or low-code tool for some one-off solutions that would otherwise be too effort-intensive or expensive.

More about BeaconZone custom solutions

Choosing a Real Time Locating System (RTLS)

A Real-time locating system (RTLS) automatically tracks the location of objects or people. Beacons, sometimes called tags, are placed on things that move and gateways, sometimes called locators, detect the beacons and send data to software either locally or in the cloud. A user interface shows the current locations.

Most organisations looking for a RTLS for the first time don’t know what aspects of systems are most important. People usually focus on maximum accuracy when, in fact, a system with maximum accuracy involves consequent undesirable compromises. Some suppliers’ marketing also focuses on performance that’s only achievable in a lab or factors that might seem important now but will become less important when other issues are known. In practice, every situation is different and you need to balance factors based on your needs.

Number of Assets

The number of assets you need to track usually has largest influence on the type of system you should consider. All systems are limited by how much data they can process. More accurate systems such as Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and Bluetooth AoA produce more data and hence support a lower maximum number of assets. However, the actual number depends on many factors such as the underlying hardware speed, the network speed (i.e. is local or in the cloud) and settings within the RTLS system itself.

Scalability

When talking to vendors, it’s important they assess the number assets you will need in the future, as well as now, so as to not outgrow a system. Scalability isn’t only about assets. It also involves the number of gateways, the degree to which they overlap physical areas, thus producing more data for more accuracy, and the scalability of subsequent processing software.

API

The use of RTLS is much like the Internet of Things (IoT) in that everyone wants to get something slightly different out of the data. If you require something other than searching for assets, this means you or your vendor will need to write reports, scripts or use reporting tools such as Grafana to extract insights. The RTLS should have an API, usually using HTTP REST, to extract data. If you have local access to the system, it’s often more flexible and faster if you can also gain direct access to the underlying database for reporting. This also opens up the number of off-the-self reporting tools that can be used.

Most systems have a user interface where you can add and remove beacons and gateways. However, imagine doing this for 1000s of assets. Look for an API to allow you to add, modify and view beacons and gateways programmatically. This allows other programs such as apps, ERP, WMS, your custom systems and scripts to simplify integration.

Flexibility

In reality, systems tend to get re-used for more than one use case as the organisation’s digital maturity grows. Check the system provides suitable access to the data for future uses. Ensure various beacon models are available for those anticipated uses.

Accuracy

As previously mentioned, the best accuracy isn’t always the top consideration. Our article on microlocation accuracy explains the different kinds of system and corresponding accuracy. Note also, that many RTLS have settings that balance accuracy with latency and maximum number of assets.

Latency

Latency is how long it takes to know a new location after something has moved. A shorter latency requires the assets to send data more often thus decreasing asset battery life. More data also implies a fewer maximum number of beacons.

Battery Life

As mentioned, above, the frequency of beacons advertising their location directly impacts beacon battery life. Systems such as UWB and Bluetooth AoA tend to have beacons advertising more often to allow higher accuracy. However, look for beacons that have accelerometers that advertise more often only when moving thus saving battery life.

License Type

Consider if you need a system locally, in the vendor’s cloud or your own cloud. For thousands of assets, reporting frequently for low latency, you will need the system to be local. If you are using SaaS you will also need to consider issues such as the service level agreement (SLA) and the location of the server for privacy requirements such as GDPR. Another issue related to SaaS, particularly with VC start-ups, is the longevity of the solution. Is the vendor going to be providing the platform as long as your project? Some early beacon platforms have already closed. Others have been taken over by large companies that have other agendas.

Security

You need to assess the security of the proposed system. This includes factors such as logins, SSL, secure APIs and the security related to the location/hosting of system.

Price

As well as the headline price, also consider if the solution is financially scalable once you increase the number of assets and gateways. Also determine if future costs are known and acceptable.

Summary

Remember that the ‘best’ RTLS is not the one the vendor claims as best for some arbitrary feature but instead is the one that best suits your needs. You will need to balance the needs of the project with the capability of the RTLS that offers the best fit.

Cisco and Aruba Based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS)

A growing number of WiFi access point vendors such as Cisco and Aruba are offering Real Time Location Systems (RTLS). While using existing hardware might seem compelling, it’s sometimes not practical. Here are some questions to be answered when considering such systems:

  • Does your site have access points from mixed vendors? If so, the RTLS won’t work across them.
  • Does your site have enough (overlapping) access points to support the RTLS?
  • What will be the latency? Hardware providing WiFi access point functionality and Bluetooth scanning can’t provide optimal throughput leading to much lower latency to find items typically in minutes rather than seconds.
  • What is the location technology? Access point systems use RSSI based locating rather than angle of arrival (AoA) that’s typically accurate to 5m rather than sub 1m. They also don’t provide the the breadth of IoT sensing provided by dedicated-hardware RTLS systems.
  • What is the maximum number of assets? Non-dedicated hardware doing the scanning for beacons severely reduces throughput and hence the maximum possible number of assets.
  • Is it SaaS? Are the future subscription costs known? What is the SLA? Where is the server? Does it meet regulatory and your company privacy needs? Does it scale financially with the number of assets? Is the SaaS platform likely to be around as long as your project needs?
  • What is the vendor competency? Many Aruba and Cisco resellers are more interested and experienced in selling hardware rather than solving RTLS and Bluetooth related problems.

Read about BeaconRTLS™

Read about PrecisionRTLS™

Using Beacons for Activity-Based Costing in Farm Management

The Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy has been looking into CANBUS-enabled activity-based costing for leveraging farm management. They have created a methodology that helps farmers to make operational decisions and create data that can be used for input into farm management information systems (FMIS).

As an example, a study showing a tractor active for 59% of the time was idling for 25% of the time. Fuel and labour costs represented from 63% to 71% of the total cost per hectare. The tractor was equipped with a CANBUS logger and Bluetooth beacons on several tractor implements to automatically recognise agricultural operations. The data was processed to classify jobs by position (field, farm, or road) and operating state (moving, fieldwork, or idling).

With such systems, farmers can determine the economic impact of farm activities and compare historical data with previous farm practices or competitors’ activities. This helps farmers make more intelligent decisions regarding crop, land and farm operations management.