Category: faq

Why Doesn’t the Manufacturer’s Configuration App Connect?

When in typical use, it’s not necessary to connect to a beacon. A beacon just advertises and is detected by a smartphone or Bluetooth gateway. However, to initially set up a beacon you usually connect via a smartphone app. The app might not connect for a number of reasons. Here are some tips:

  • Most beacons need to be put into ‘connectable’ mode. For example, for most AnkhMaway beacons this means tapping them sharply on a table until they ring – they remain connectable for 45 secs and once connected remain so until you have configured the beacon. For Axaet and Meeblue beacons they stay connectable for a few minutes after turning them on.
  • Make sure you are connecting to the correct beacon. This is especially important if you are seeing multiple Bluetooth devices in the list. For example, we had one customer who hadn’t removed the plastic battery slip and had been trying to connect to some other Bluetooth beacon/device.
  • Connecting, via what is a wireless interface, might not work first time. While most connections do happen first time, there can be radio interference and radio signal reflections that can cause the connection to fail. Some configuration apps re-try if the first connect fails while others don’t. Make sure you have tried a few times before concluding a particular scenario doesn’t work.
  • Some phones have a faulty Bluetooth beacon stack. That’s the Bluetooth software built into your phone. While you might be able to view the beacon, connecting to it to change settings uses more advanced functionality that’s sometimes faulty. Over time, we have discovered about 5% of our customers have such problems, more so on Android. It’s a much more common problem than a faulty beacon. You can isolate this possibility by trying a different phone and/or different phone OS type.
  • Don’t try connecting from more than one phone at a time. When connected, that phone has exclusive access to the beacon and other phones won’t be able to see the beacon and connect.
  • Make sure you are using the correct password to connect. It’s not the password on the sticker which is the web site technical area password.
  • Try rebooting your phone to reset the internal Bluetooth software.
  • Try resetting the beacon by removing and replacing the battery (where possible). This isn’t the same as turning off via a button press which usually only puts the beacon into hibernation and doesn’t restart the device.
  • Some configuration apps have known bugs. Read the BeaconZone technical area for your particular beacon manufacturer where we document known problems and workarounds.
  • The beacon could be faulty. This is actually a very rare occurrence and you should initially be considering other more likely possibilities (above). You can isolate this possibility if you have another similar beacon. Please contact us for replacement if you conclude you have a faulty beacon.

Why Doesn’t The Beacon Achieve The Specified Range?

The distance that a beacon can transmit is shown in the specification tab for each beacon. This is the maximum range specified by the manufacturer at maximum power under ideal conditions.

Here are some tips if the range is less than expected:

  • Make sure the beacon is operating in normal rather than configuration or connectable mode. Some beacons transmit differently or only for a limited time when they are in connectable mode. For example, with AnkhMaway beacons, make sure the mode has been set to ‘On’ either in the configuration app settings or via service/characteristic parameters.
  • Make sure the beacon is set to 0dBm transmit power (or higher) rather than a negative value that indicates the beacon is to transmit with reduced power.
  • Re-orient the beacon. Most beacons have antennas on the printed circuit board that have differing transmission characteristics depending on their orientation to the observer and whether they are shielded by other components such as the battery. Experiment with different orientations in each of the three dimensions.
  • Try a different observing device (phone). Different phones have different receiving characteristics.
  • Try at a different place. In rare circumstances, the area might be congested with 2.4GHz interference from other beacons, WiFi or other equipment. The area might have particular radio frequency (RF) blocking or reflective qualities.
  • If you can, try a different beacon of the same model to isolate whether it’s a faulty beacon.

The maximum specified range is rarely achieved for any beacon although there have been a cases where we have found beacons to be better than the specification.

All manufacturers, not just those whose beacons we sell, tend to specify the optimum range, outdoors, with no radio interference. You will experience reduced range indoors where there are radio reflections and obstacles. If you need a long range under all circumstances then we recommend you over-specify the beacon range and perhaps look at beacons with an ultra-long range.

What are the Estimated Distances for Tx Powers?

Beacons allow you to set the transmit power to levels such as -30dBm, -20dBm, -16dBm, -12dBm, -8dBm, -4dBm, 0dBm and +4dBm. The number of actual setting values depends on the beacon. 0dbm is the default power recommended for normal use. Our article on Choosing the Transmitted Power explains these values and how they relate to distance.

We are often asked ‘What are the Estimated Distance/s for Tx Powers?’. This depends on the beacon, the environment and the receiver. An analogy is someone shouting a word. How loud does someone have to shout to be heard a certain distance? It depends on how clear the person shouts, how much noise there is and how well the person listening can hear. With beacons it depends on the beacon (mainly antenna) design, how much radio frequency (RF) noise there is, the degree of RF reflections, the receiving ability of the device (smartphone or gateway) you are using and even the weather.

The only way to determine the relationship between distance and power is experimentally and it will likely change over time as the environment changes.

Can You Provide iBeacons That Pop Up Smartphone Notifications?

You might have read that beacons can be used to pop up notifications. Such a mechanism, called Google Nearby Notifications, existed prior to October 2018 after which it was discontinued.

Today, there are two ways to cause beacons to trigger notifications:

What’s the Best iBeacon?

We often get asked what’s the best iBeacon? Unfortunately, there is no one best beacon for all scenarios. It depends on your particular project and business requirements. Having said this we have some favourites based on specific characteristics:

Best for Price: FSC-BP103 – Inexpensive beacon that transmits up to 10 channels simultaneously:

Best for Features: M52-SA Plus – Large easy replaceable battery, long range, temperature, humidity, accelerometer:

iBeacon

Best for Battery Life: SmartBeacon-AA Pro (no longer available) – Allows use of 4x AA batteries. Use lithium AA batteries for 7+ year battery life (also depends on settings).

Best for Setup App: Minew range – Minew’s latest BeaconPlus range (those supporting both iBeacon and Eddystone) provides the best in class app.

View our complete range.

How Many Connections Can an iBeacon Support?

We sometimes get asked how many connections an iBeacon can support? The answer is ‘1’ but it’s often the right answer to the wrong intended question. The intended question is usually “How many receivers can see a beacon?”

Beacons don’t usually connect. They just advertise and can be seen by an infinite number of receivers that include phones, gateways or single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi.

The receivers only usually connect once, during setup via an app, to set the initial iBeacon parameters. When connected, the beacon doesn’t advertise which prevents extra receivers from connecting. Once set up, the app disconnects and the beacon starts advertising again.

Should I Use the Manufacturer iBeacon SDKs?

Some manufacturers offer SDKs to allow programmatic access to their beacons from iOS and Android.

Most SDKs tend to be poorly implemented/documented, tie your code into using that particular beacon and rarely get updated to use newer mobile platform APIs. They also tend to be thin abstractions over the Android and iOS Bluetooth APIs.

If you rely on a beacon manufacturer that doesn’t update their SDK, it’s eventually the case that the underlying Android and/or iOS API changes such that your solution becomes non-optimal and, in the worse case, breaks.

Instead, when you can, we recommend you use the iOS and Android Bluetooth APIs directly to make your code independent of the beacon type. In this way you don’t end up depending on intermediate code and this has the benefit that you can more easily change beacon providers.

Alternatively, use an independent 3rd party library such as Radius Network’s iOS SDK or one of the many Android Bluetooth libraries.

Where Can I Find a Beacon Solution that Does xyz?

We get lots of enquiries along the lines of:

“Where Can I Find a Beacon Solution that Does xyz?”

Where xyz could be one of many things. Unfortunately, we don’t have a full knowledge of what’s out there, particularly because it’s continually changing.

We maintain a BeaconZone Solutions Directory where we list solutions we have found in the categories of marketing/retail, industry/logistics, buildings/staff, visitor spaces, transportation, education and personal.

If you can’t find a solution, we also create custom solutions.

Which Beacons for 2-way radio Motorola TRBOnet Plus?

TRBOnet is a 2-way radio dispatch system sold and supported by Motorola. It can use iBeacons to provide for locating where the Motorola radio GPS doesn’t work. This allows radios and hence people to be located indoors or undercover areas such as trees.

TRBOnet Plus beacons
TRBOnet Plus

TRBOnet Plus will work with any iBeacons. The ones with higher battery capacity tend to be used so that batteries don’t have to be replaced for years.

i3 Beacon for Motorola TRBOnet Plus
i3 Beacon for Motorola TRBOnet Plus

The i3 is popular for use with TRBOnet as it takes AA batteries that can be easily sourced and the unit has screw tags for permanent mounting. Some sites also use USB beacons that can be powered from the mains via USB power supplies.

If you use the i3, or any beacon using AA batteries, we recommend you use lithium AA batteries rather than alkaline. This will not only provide a longer battery life but will also provide better resilience at lower temperatures.

What is Bluetooth Beacon Technology?

Bluetooth beacons use Bluetooth LE, a low power version of Bluetooth to repeatedly send out a short amount of data typically up to 50m but in some cases hundreds of metres. The data usually includes an identifier in various standard formats such as iBeacon or Eddystone. It can also include sensor data.

The beacon advertising can be picked up by other Bluetooth LE devices such as smartphones, WiFi gateways to send to a server and single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi.

The key features are:

  • Low power and hence can work for up to years on battery power
  • Interoperability with a large number of other Bluetooth LE devices
  • The underlying Bluetooth LE protocol is resilient to electrical interference
  • Sensing without the need for soldering or custom electronics

To learn more about the physical aspects of beacons and the actual advertising, see our article on What are Beacons?

Read more about beacons for IoT sensing.