INGICS – Page 2 – BeaconZone Blog

New Bluetooth Sensors

We have two new sensor beacons in stock. The iBS03TP is a waterproof temperature beacon with a 2m probe measuring -50C to 150C with an accuracy +- 0.5C.

The iBS02M2 measures on/off. This can be a switch or a voltage (0.5v to 50v is ‘on’).

The small PCB with a USB connector plugs into the main unit USB. The terminal block is used connect to anything that provides a switched or voltage output. This makes this beacon suitable for detecting a wide range of on/off scenarios.

Read about Beacon Proximity and Sensing for the Internet of Things (IoT)

INGICS Bluetooth Gateway MQTT Service Levels

The INGICS iGS01S (WiFi) and iGS02E (Ethernet) gateways support MQTT to send data to a server.

MQTT defines three levels of Quality of Service (QoS) that relate to whether requests are resent if not acknowledged:

0 – The broker/client will deliver the message once, with no confirmation.
1 – The broker/client will deliver the message at least once, with confirmation required.
2 – The broker/client will deliver the message exactly once by using a four step handshake.

The INGICS gateways only support QoS level 0. This is because these gateways have lower memory and processing capability. They don’t have enough memory to queue unacknowledged requests required of other QoS levels. The extra processing would also significantly impact the performance and hence throughput.

If you need a higher MQTT service level then try the Minew G1 that supports QoS levels 0 and 1.

New INGICS Beacons in Stock

We have two new beacons in stock in the INGICS range:

The iGS04 is a new keyring/keyfob style beacon only 6mm thin. It advertises continuously and the button is used to change a value in the advertising data.

The iGS01 is similar to our other iGS beacons except it has no sensors other than the being able to detect the button press.

These Bluetooth beacons are not iBeacon nor Eddystone beacons. The advertising data is instead wholly used for sensor data. You will need an (your own) app or gateway to scan and obtain the advertising data.

Inspecting Data from Bluetooth Gateways

Bluetooth gateways scan for beacons and send detected data your server, BeaconServer™ or BeaconRTLS™. However, what if you don’t have a server yet or want to determine if a gateway is actually sending data?

Ubeac allows you to set up a hook to receive gateway data. What’s more, they have some informative setup videos for our INGICS, Minew, AnkhMaway and Aprilbrother gateways.

Ubeac INGICS Setup

Read about Beacon Proximity and Sensing for the Internet of Things (IoT)

View Bluetooth gateways

New iGS01S Bluetooth WiFi Gateway in Stock

We have the new INGICS iGS01S Bluetooth WiFi gateway in stock.

The iGS01S is a new version of the iGS01. It’s functionally compatible with the iGS01 in that you can replace an iGS01 with an iGS01S and it will behave similarly. Hence, it’s also compatible with BeaconServer™ and BeaconRTLS™.

iGS01 gateways allow you to scan for nearby Bluetooth devices and send the scanned data up to a server, including AWS IoT, via TCP, HTTP(S) POST or MQTT.

The main change is the case which the manufacturer has changed to allow commonality of parts with the Ethernet version, the iGS01E.

We also have the matching wall holder in stock.

Read about Beacon Proximity and Sensing for the Internet of Things (IoT)

iGS02E without PoE

We now have the INGICS iGS02E Bluetooth to Ethernet gateway (without PoE) in stock.

This small device looks for Bluetooth LE devices and sends their advertising on to a server via TCP, HTTP(S) or MQTT including AWS IoT. If you use with sensor beacons, this provides a quick and easy way to provide for IoT sensing.

Compatible with BeaconServer™ and BeaconRTLS™.

We also stock the INGICS PoE splitter.

New Rugged Industrial Sensor Beacons in Stock

We have some early samples of the new INGICS iBS03 range of beacons in stock. They are functionally similar to the iBS01 range except are waterproof to IP67 and have a more robust case with 2m drop protection.

We stock three variants:
iBS03T – Temperature sensor
iBS03G – Motion (starting/moving/stopped) and fall detection
iBS03RG – Accelerometer for raw xyz

Bluetooth IoT Sensors

There’s a type of beacon that doesn’t send out iBeacon or Eddystone advertising. Instead, it sends out standard Bluetooth 4.0 advertising containing sensor values. This means the data can be picked up via apps, gateways, Raspberry Pis or other devices that can see Bluetooth advertising.

An example of this is the INGICS iBS01 range of beacons.

The round bit in the middle is a button that can be pressed. Here’s an example for the data from the iBS01T temperature/humidity sensor:

Additionally, the ‘event’ data gives the state of the button press.

Sensor Beacons

Beacons to Detect Proximity

Beacons can be used to detect if things or people are in a zone by either putting beacons on the moving things or having the beacons static in a zone.

For the beacons on things/people approach, a gateway or other scanning device looks for beacons in the vicinity and triggers actions. For the static beacons case, an app on peoples’ phone can detect beacon(s) in a zone and trigger actions.

We have some new beacons in stock that now provide a third way of detecting proximity. They use IR and PIR to detect the proximity of any item coming within range. For IR that’s <50cm and for PIR < 5m. These beacons transmit the current state via Bluetooth that can be picked up by an app or gateway.

iBS02IR

iBS02PIR

It’s expected these beacons will be more suitable for IoT and Industrial scenarios.

Detecting Falling Using Beacons

Beacons can be used to detect when something is falling. The classic usecase is healthcare where patients can be monitored and an alert generated when they have fallen. However, fall detection can be used in other areas such as mountaineering and construction where human life is in jeopardy due to the high risk of a fall. It’s not just people that can be monitored. Fall detection can be used for valuable/fragile items in places such as warehouses, factories or even in transit.

Detecting falling uses an accelerometer in the beacon. Some sensor beacons generate x y z data that can be used to programatically detect the fall. The problem with this is you need relatively complex local processing such as a smartphone or single board computer to analyse the x y z data. A solution is the iBS01G that not only detects that the beacon is falling but also indicates when the beacon is moving, has gone from still to moving or moving back to still.

The advertising data event status shows the movement states:

The states can be logged or shown directly in an app or sent to a server via a WiFi gateway.