Author: Support

What’s the Best Beacon?

Too many potential customers contact us asking what’s the least expensive beacon that provides the best range, the best battery life and the smallest size. Unfortunately, all these things are related. You need a larger battery to provide enough power for a longer range. A large battery implies a larger beacon size. A larger battery and case implies a more expensive beacon. The choice of ‘best’ beacon usually involves some sort of compromise.

It’s also often the case that customers focus on price, range, battery life and size without considering other factors such as:

  • Visual appearance – Good-looking beacons can sometimes be counter-productive as they can be attractive to thieves.
  • App – Some manufacturer configuration apps are easier to use than others.
  • Waterproofing – Some unexpected scenarios need waterproofing due to high humidity.
  • Motion triggering – Some beacons provide motion triggering to significantly increase battery life.
  • On-off button – It’s sometimes desirable to be able to turn the beacon on and off without having to remove the battery.
  • Attachment options – Some beacons include strong double sided stickers, tabs for screws or holes for fastening.

View All Beacons

Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) for The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as 4IR and Industry 4.0, improves manufacturing through the use of technology. The end-aims are to significantly improve productivity, reduce production delays and, for example, avoid penalties or future lost orders due to delayed work.

A key part of The Fourth Industrial Revolution is asset tracking that provides faster and more accurate stock control, item picking, job tracking, capacity measurement, demand analysis and product protection through sensing and automatic auditing.

It’s important that asset tracking is continuous because merely scanning things in/out using barcodes is open to human error and location is otherwise only as good as the last scan. Historical data is also important because it identifies blockages allowing processes to be refined.

When evaluating asset tracking systems consider:

  • Scalability and Performance – How many things do you need to track today and into the future?
  • Flexibility – Many of our customers initially buy an RTLS for one urgent purpose but later end up use the system system for additional needs.
  • Security – Where is your data stored and where does it go?

Look for a stand-alone solution rather than SAAS for greater performance, flexibility and longevity. While SAAS based systems can be a quick way into RTLS, they soon become limiting because you are sharing a platform with other customers. SAAS platforms usually don’t scale well technically and financially and don’t have efficient, direct access to the data for efficient ad-hoc reporting. They also pose potential security and reliability risks as you don’t own your data. The ultimate limitation comes when the SAAS provider, usually a startup, eventually increases costs, get’s bought out by its largest customer or goes out of business.

BeaconRTLS


Beacons in Industry and the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR)

Read about BeaconRTLS

Read about BluetoothLocationEngine™

Using Beacons in Clinical Trials

There’s recent research by Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED), Switzerland on a Beacon-Based Remote Measurement of Social Behaviour in ASD Clinical Trials: A Technical Feasibility Assessment.

Beacons were used to determine the location of participants in an observational Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) clinical trial designed to assess social behaviour. Beacons were placed by the participants or caregivers in separate rooms in the household and a smartwatch used to detect the beacons as the participant moved from room to room. A smartphone app was used to map each beacon with each room.

A key aspect of the study is that it was conducted with no participant training and without the supervision of a technical person.

The study also provides a comparison with prior work and a comparison of locating technologies:

The researchers provide some good practice guidelines for using beacons for indoor locating:

  • Set the beacons to have the same transmission power to allow the signals to be comparable
  • Beacons should be placed in an open area in each room that is close to the activity centre of the room to minimize interference
  • Beacons should ideally have line of sight and face toward the participant and not considerably higher than the receiving smartwatch

The study achieved an accuracy of 97.2% proving that beacons have the potential to provide deep insights into in-home behaviour. This provides more objective data than would be the case with commonly used questionnaire-based studies.

PubNub Android Tutorials

We recently came across a great resource on PubNub that shows how to use Android to detect beacons and also transmit as a beacon.

The tutorial is in three parts that 1) Describes beacon advertising and how to scan for beacons 2) How to filter detected beacons 3) Setting up Android as an emitter.

There’s also a related PubNub article by the same author on how to Create a Tessel Beacon with a BLE Module.

Indoor Navigation Using Bluetooth LE

There’s a new article from the Icontech International Journal of Surveys, Engineering, Technology on Indoor Position Routing (IPR) and Data Monitor Using Bluetooth Low Energy Technology by researchers at the Hasan Kalyoncu University, Institute of Science, Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Gaziantep, Turkey.

This article is different because it considers navigation as opposed to just locating. It explains the advantages of Bluetooth LE over WiFi and also compares with RFID:

Trilateration, Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and Decibel-milliwatts (dBmW) are explained and how these fit into locating position.

The article describes a system created for navigation that uses iBeacon sensor nodes, an Android device and app.

Read Determining Location Using Bluetooth Beacons

Read Using Beacons, iBeacons for Real-time Locating Systems (RTLS)

What Can Block Beacon Signals?

We often get questions asking what kinds of things can block Bluetooth signals and enquiries about the relative blocking of different materials.

Metal obstructions or metal-based surfaces such as metal-reinforced concrete cause the most blocking followed by other dense building materials such as plaster and concrete. Next comes water that you might not think would be a problem but, as people are made up of 60% water, bodies blocking Bluetooth signals can be a significant factor. Least blocking are glass (but not bulletproof), wood and plastics.

Blocking can be caused by wireless noise as well and physical obstructions. This includes electrical noise from other electrical equipment as well as interference from devices using the same 2.4GHz frequency. WiFi on 2.4GHz causes negligible interference.

In extreme cases, a very large number of Bluetooth devices can cause interference with each other because only one can advertise at a time without there being collisions and hence lost data. The maximum number of Bluetooth devices depends on how long and how often the Bluetooth devices transmit. It also depends on whether devices are just advertising or additionally using GATT connections. Bluetooth also has adaptive frequency hopping that helps reduce packet interference.

We have a deeper analysis of interference in the post on Bluetooth LE on the Factory Floor.

Bluetooth Low Energy Packet Formats

In most cases, it’s possible to use beacons without knowing the exact data format of the advertising. It’s usually possible to specify only a few values such as iBeacon UUID, major and minor and the devices and listening apps work together. In some instances it’s necessary to know Bluetooth LE packets formats, for example, to implement your own code.

The Bluetooth packet formats are defined by the Bluetooth specifications but specifications aren’t always the fastest and easiest to understand. There’s a new presentation on SlideShare on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Packet formats.

Winfred Lu from STMicroelectronics describes Link layer, advertising, data channel and physical channel packets.

Read about Using Bluetooth Low Energy (LE)

Tracking Hand Power Tools Using Bluetooth Beacons

DEWALT have a new Bluetooth beacon, the DCE042, that provides tracking of hand power tools.

It works with the Tool Connect System, on web or mobile, to track, assign, and manage tools to save time, improve productivity and reduce costs due to lost tools.

Several years ago we provided consultancy for a similar system developed by AddMobile (since been acquired by Infobric Group). The use of beacons in construction poses challenges related to the internal physical construction of beacons beyond them having to be rugged and IPX rated. Care also needs to be taken to design systems for efficient battery use so that device battery management doesn’t become a burden for users.

Learn More About Beaconzone Consulting

Beacons for Restaurant Order Apps

A growing number of restaurant ordering apps, such as Voolsy, use Bluetooth beacons to determine location.

Voolsy detects restaurants through iBeacons, lets customers explore digital menu, customize their order and place it with just a few taps across thousands of locations. Voolsy reduces your waiting time to get attention of waiter from minutes to seconds

Voolsy supports both ordering and payment for retail locations such as restaurants, food courts or cinemas using beacons. It also provides Voolsy cashback and other exclusive offers from partnered restaurants.