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In-Vehicle Bluetooth Sensing

Teltonika have an innovative range of advanced vehicle trackers that include Bluetooth. The tracker can scan for other nearby Bluetooth devices and send sensor data to a server.

There’s a getting started guide that explains how this is setup and provides screens showing how it works.

This allows not just for sensing telematics about the vehicles themselves but also about other assets or people. For example, if people carry beacons it’s possible to know who is driving or is in a vehicle. If you tag equipment usually stored in a vehicle you can determine where it is or if it is about to be removed from a vehicle. For temperature sensitive goods, such as medicines, you can continuously audit temperature compliance. It’s also possible to provide for location specific triggering, for example, producing work orders when a vehicle reaches an exact point whether or not there’s GPS coverage.

Bluetooth Sensors for the Smart Home

Karl Wachs, author of the pibeacon plugin for indigo domotics Mac-based smart home software, has a new release on GitHub that includes many INGICS and Minew sensor beacons on our web store.

Indigo domotics provides complex conditions and advanced scheduling via an intuitive interface. The detection of Bluetooth sensors greatly expands the capabilities of the system.

Apple Mac Smart Home — Smart Home on the Apple Mac – Indigo also provide iOS and Web based interfaces.

The plugin tracks iBeacons using multiple Raspberry Pis. Sensor data is read and sent to a variety of output devices.

The use of the system isn’t just limited to the smart home. The system can be used in offices and industry SMEs to provide for arbitrary sensor based detection and triggering.

Please note BeaconZone only supplies Business to Business.

Using iBeacon to Discover Printers

Xerox has started using iBeacon to allow AirPrint-enabled Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad or Mac, to discover nearby AltaLink® printers even when not on the same subnet as the printer.

There’s a ‘Robo woman’ Introduction Video for System Administrators:

This demonstrates an example of iBeacon being used to provide for a better customer experience.

Social Distancing Bluetooth RSSI Calibration

We previously described how social distance beacons differ from ordinary beacons. Devices advertise AND scan rather than just advertise OR scan. The principle is the same with with smartphones using the Apple/Google Exposure Notification API.

The problem with smartphones is that their transmit and receive capabilities vary widely. The received signal strength (RSSI) is inconsistent across types of smartphone and you can’t determine distance reliably. Apple and Google have mitigated this problem by attempting to create a database of calibration values (csv).

The calibration data is useful for Bluetooth developers creating solutions across devices. However, it’s of no use for 3rd party contact tracing as only Government agencies can use the Exposure Notification API and Apple is banning Covid related apps.

Read about Beacons for Workplace Social Distancing and Contact Tracing.

Using Beacons to Prevent a Lunchtime Attack

There’s a new paper on DE-auth of the Blue! Transparent De-authentication Using Bluetooth Low Energy Beacon. While the paper is behind a paywall, the paper’s abstract provides enough information to determine the intent.

When people move away from their desk, for example for lunch, they often don’t log out. It can be some time before the screen saver kicks in and logs the user out. The paper takes a look at the use of beacons to provide de-authentication when the person moves away from their desk.

This is a much simpler method than previous research that used Seated Posture Biometrics (pdf).

Add GroupMe Members Using iBeacon

GroupMe is Microsoft’s free messaging application that works across HoloLens, PC and mobile devices. GroupMe is published by the Skype part of Microsoft.

We recently learnt that it’s possible to use iBeacon to add members.

This is another example of an application adding iBeacon support as a side feature as opposed to using iBeacon to drive the main purpose of the application. Applications can gain ease of use by using iBeacons for locating.

View iBeacons

Graphical Bluetooth Spectrum Analyzer for Linux

Most of the time Bluetooth ‘just works’. However, if you need to diagnose interference problems or do site surveys then you will need a wireless spectrum analyser. Sparrow-WiFi is a spectrum analyser for Linux:

There’s a useful tutorial at Wonder How To.

Read What are Beacons?

Learning about Web Bluetooth

Web Bluetooth allows you to view and control Bluetooth devices from a web page.

There’s a great introduction by Niels Leenheer at Smashing Magazine. Niels is heavily into browser based solutions and has also presented about Web Bluetooth at many conferences. Visit his talks page, scroll down to ‘Fun with Bluetooth’ and click on the presentation or video icons.

Web Bluetooth only works with some browsers:

While Niels concentrates on communicating with consumer goods such as lightbulbs, robots and drones, Web Bluetooth also has uses for businesses and organisations. Web interfaces can be used to control beacons or any Bluetooth LE devices.

On Android, when created as a Progressive Web App (PWA) it behaves like an app but is created using web technologies. There’s no app packaging or signing and it can work offline. It can be optionally installed in the mobile operating system where it will look and act like any other app.

Apple’s PWA implementation doesn’t (yet) work with Bluetooth. Indeed, Apple is behind when it comes to PWA.

Do you have an Estimote Alternative?

We sometimes get asked if we have a replacement for Estimote beacons. There’s no exact replacement because Estimote manufacture their own custom product and only allow their own beacons on their platform.

However, if your app doesn’t use the Estimote SDK and just detects iBeacon advertising using the standard iOS and Android Bluetooth libraries then you can use any iBeacon. Also see our post regarding compatibility.

Read about the advantages of generic beacons

Safety System Using iBeacon

The Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering of TJS Engineering College, Chennai, India has a new paper on Women Safety System using iBeacon Technology.

It describes a system that uses iBeacon to provide tracking of women when out alone. As it uses iBeacon, it is presumably for use where GPS doesn’t work. Also, while not mentioned, it might equally be used for all vulnerable people including lone workers, young, old and disabled.

The system consists of a wearable belt that tracks location and sends alerts via cellular connection. It uses heartbeat, sound and pressure sensors to detect abnormal situations.