Jos Ryke has posted an interesting cheat sheet on Twitter that shows the various beacon advertising formats:
This provides similar information to that provided in our article on What are Beacons?
Author: Support
Using Beacons with Gamification
We have previously written about trying to achieve ‘want-in’ rather ‘opt-in’ for beacon apps. One way to achieve this is to use a technique called gamification that is often used in non-beacon apps to encourage greater engagement and retention:
“The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.”
There’s a recent paper by the University of Cambridge Museums consortium, a group of eight museums within the University, working in partnership also with the University’s Botanic Garden and other University collections written by Tommy Nilsson, Alan F. Blackwell, Carl Hogsden and David Scruton. The paper, ‘Ghosts! A Location-Based Bluetooth LE Mobile Game for Museum Exploration’ (pdf) examines the challenges and opportunities introduced by the introduction of a beacons into museum scenarios.
They found that the nature of the museum interior with large shelves and artefacts scattered throughout the space, contributed to unpredictable signal coverage. Instead of trying to implement traditional location finding, they instead used gamification to have ‘ghosts’ popping up on the screen of the mobile device explaining to the player that they are lost and need help finding their way back to their home artefacts. The unpredictable signal coverage became part of the challenge and game. They describe the result as a:
“Museum guide masking itself as a hide and seek game”
One of their conclusions is that:
“BLE can thus play a significant role in advancing the internet of things from a mere futuristic vision to a mainstream level of use”
More Silicon Manufacturers Eyeing Bluetooth LE
Following Toshiba, silicon manufacturers are becoming more active in the Bluetooth LE space. STMicroelectronics have announced their Latest SoC, the BlueNRG-1 and Fujitsu have announced the FWM7BLZ20 module.
The BlueNRG-1 has a SPI interface to communicate with an application processor suggesting use within other larger hardware systems while the Fujitsu FWM7BLZ20 is a pre-certified module with integrated antenna, based on the Nordic nRF52832, allowing you to get to market quicker.
While these new products are suitable for beacon related products, their use is more likely to be targeted at Bluetooth LE IoT applications.
Transport Information System Learnings
There’s a recent article on ZDNet on Smartphones, Bluetooth beacons: The pairing that could help the blind catch the right bus. After weeks of testing, the city of Strasbourg in France is now ready to rollout a smartphone-based transport information system. 1,400 beacons at libraries, tourist spots and bus stops allow users to interact with city locations on their smartphones.
Two interesting issues with the initial trial were:
- Slow detection time meant users at bus stops were being notified too late
- Placing beacons behind the windscreens of busses, the 80m range wasn’t sufficient
While the article doesn’t explain how the slow detection time was solved we suspect it had something to do with the app having to connect to get information. This information might have been bus information or something to do with the beacon platform. Caching information or turning off advanced functionality that required the app to connect will have solved the problem. Alternatively, it could have been that the time between beacon advertising was too long preventing it from being picked up quickly by the app.
The 80m range was solved by configuring the beacons to be more powerful and transmit to 160 meters. Unless the beacon was already transmitting at less than normal (0dBm) power it wouldn’t have been possible to double the range by re-configuring the power. Most beacons go up to +4dBm which, while providing over double the power, wouldn’t have doubled the range. It’s more likely they had to use a different beacon with integrated power amplifier such as those in our Ultra Long Range.
White Key Fob Beacon in Stock
We have had a small number of a white version of the Apple MFi certified PC061 key fob beacon come into stock. This beacon supports one of iBeacon, Eddystone-UID, Eddystone-URL at any one time, the mode being changed by quickly double clicking the button. Clicking the button once turns it on and off. It remembers the last used mode.
This beacon is waterproof and weighs only 11g. It comes with a special metal tool for opening the case and replacing the battery. The battery should last 6-12 months depending on the advertising rate.
New ASensor Beacon
We have the new ASensor beacon in stock. This is our smallest sensor beacon measuring only 37.3mm x 37.3mm x 7mm and it uses the power efficient Dialog DA14580 that gives up to 1.5 years from a CR2025 battery.
The beacon supports iBeacon, Eddystone or sensor advertising. For sensor mode, the temperature, acceleration and battery level are in the advertising data.
Wireless iBeacon Receiver in Stock
We now have the AprilBrother Wireless iBeacon Receiver in stock.
The Wireless iBeacon Receiver receives (any manufacturer) beacon advertising broadcasts and sends them on via MQTT via your WiFi access point. It can scan for multiple beacons at the same time and provides updates up to 1 per second.
This device can be used to monitor the health of beacons or in other usecases whether beacons have come into range or out of range. It can also be used with sensor beacons in IoT-type scenarios.
Using iBeacons To Prompt You To Do Healthy Things
We like Nag Murty’s tweet where he says…
“Think ibeacons are only for retail? How about using an ibeacon as a health coach”
The Product Hunt web site video shows how he is using beacons to prompt himself to do more healthy things.
Nag doesn’t share how he does this but it’s fairly simple to implement. You can use just about any beacon with AutomateIt on Android or Proximitask on iOS to create a notification when you pass a beacon.
Thoughts on the Interview with CEO of Gimbal
The site for the forthcoming The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Beacosystem book has a new video interview with Jeff Russakow, CEO of Gimbal. Here are some insights from the interview.
Most beacon projects need an app. Gimbal is partnering with companies such as Shazam to get Beacon detection working on larger numbers of phones and then convincing those users to install a more specific app for a for more immersive experience. This made us wonder whether Eddystone-URL/the Physical Web could also provide this function. Could Eddystone URL be used to convince the user to install a specific app for a for more immersive experience?
Jeff talks of providing experiences rather than coupons. Experience is not a coupon. It’s important to know your customer (through context, including via beacons), before pushing coupons.
The video mentions some interesting usecases for banks. There are also a large range of things that can be done automatically for users when they reach a location. Beacons can also be used to provide analytics. Not analytics about triggered coupons or experiences but web analytics for the physical world. Simply knowing where people are and what they are doing can aid other business processes.
The conclusion is that beacon technology is relatively mature but under-commercialised. It offers new, varied opportunities, especially outside the marketing world. We agree with Jeff’s view is that industry could do with more thought leadership.
New Tally App
We have just announced our new Tally app that can be used to monitor people or things that have beacons attached to them. It’s suitable for counting groups of people, for example, tour groups and educational classes or finding the wareabouts of things such as stock items, machines or vehicles. It’s also suitable for lone workers and evidence based working.
The app is csv driven in that you can import and export beacons of interest with given names and groups. You can then start/stop monitoring sessions on all beacons, all beacons declared in the app or just beacons in a named group. The results make up sessions of detected beacons that can, again, be exported to csv files. You can also choose to add arbitrary (prompted for) information to a session, for example a description of the location, that you might later use for analysis.
The power of the app comes from the fact it works in background and can also work unattended, stopping and starting sessions automatically during idle time when detected the beacons haven’t changed. The resulting session csv files can be automatically sent via email or ftp, with queuing for failed sends.
Here are some examples of how Tally can be used:
Managing Tour Groups: You might set up an Excel file with named grouped members that’s imported into the app. Give each a beacon and set the app to show those beacons that are missing. Start a session and the app will give you the names of those people missing.
Class Registration: Give each student a beacon. Import the student names from Excel and/or dynamically add the named students one by one by allowing the app to add the nearest beacon. Set the app to automatic sessions and email sending. The app will regularly report who is in the room. The app will also send the group if this has been set for the student.
Managing Stock: Put beacons on large or valuable stock items. Import the items from Excel or add manually in the app auto-filling the beacon uuid, major and minor for the closest beacon. Set the app to prompt for extra information at the start of a session. When you need to do a stock check, start a session, enter the room name or area and walk around the room. Stop the session and export the detected beacons. You might also set the minimum signal strength for detection so as to filter out beacons in adjacent rooms.
Evidence Based Working: Some jobs require workers to prove they have been at a particular place at a particular time. Site beacons at the places that need to be visited. Import the named place details and/or set them manually in the app (you can also export this data). Set the app to unattended use and FTP upload and give to the worker. You will receive where the worker has been, with named locations via FTP.
Testing Beacons: Some rollouts, for example at museums, need to regularly walk-test the routes to make sure the beacons are working and battery strength is sufficient. Set the app to detect all beacons and enable the battery monitoring. Walk the museum and all the beacons, with their battery levels will be recorded for the session. Export to Excel, send via email or share the output session file.