iBeacon, Eddystone, Bluetooth, IoT sensor beacons, apps, platforms
If you want to quickly demonstrate or test IoT, the G1 gateway comes pre-setup to send data to beaconyun.com, Minew’s platform for testing.
The following video gives and overview of the platform and how it’s used:
The video mentions entering a beacon’s MAC address. Our article on Testing if a Beacon is Working explains how to find a MAC address.
More information:
Beacon Proximity and Sensing for the Internet of Things (IoT)
This is part 1 of a 3 part series that explains what’s inside a beacon. In this part we take a look at the physical beacon.
All beacons are similar inside because they are based on standard circuit designs from Nordic Semiconductor, Dialog Semiconductor or Texas Instruments. These semiconductor manufacturers produce a complete system on a chip (SoC) that requires minimal external components. The SoC is a small computer with memory that runs software created by the manufacturer of the beacon. We will take a deeper look at the SoC in part 2 and the software in part 3.
For this series of articles we going to take a deeper look at Minew’s i7 beacon. It’s based on Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52832 SoC.
Inside the case is a PCB with a CR2477 slide in battery at the rear.
The main chip you can see is the mRF52832. At the top you can also see the antenna that’s created using a track in the printed circuit board. The holes at the bottom right are connections used to program the beacon.
To understand more, we need to look at the printed circuit board design and circuit schematic:
It can be seen that there aren’t many external components. Y1, the metal component at the top is the crystal used to maintain timing. The SoC has a number of programmable input/output (PIO) pins that are multi-purpose. In a beacon some are usually connected to LEDs and a switch as shown at the left hand side of the circuit diagram. There are also capacitors that need to be external to the SoC.
U2, U3 and U4 are optional for this beacon and missing from this variant of the i7. U2 is the KX022-1020 accelerometer. U3 is the SHT31 temperature/humidity sensor. U4 is the BH1721 light sensor.
In part 2 we take a closer look at the nRF52 SoC.
We have the new Minew E2 PA in stock. It’s a waterproof beacon advertising iBeacon and Eddystone.
What’s special about this beacon is the 10+ year battery life that comes through using the power efficient Nordic nRF52 SoC and 4 AA batteries. The in-use battery life will depend on settings.
This beacon also has a power amplifier that provides for an exceptional range of up to 500m. However, as with any long range beacon, the maximum range is achieved only when there’s line of sight.
We have the new Minew S1 in stock. It’s a sensor beacon with accelerometer, temperature and humidity as well as iBeacon/Eddystone. Unusually for a temperature/humidity beacon it is waterproof to IP65 making it suitable for use outdoors. Sensor beacons like this usually have the sensor on the PCB and a hole in the case to pass through ambient temperature and humidity. Instead, the sensor is outside the beacon:
This beacon takes 2 AAA batteries and uses a newer, more efficient Nordic nRF52 System on a Chip (SoC) for a long 3 year battery life.
We have the new Minew G1 gateway in stock. The G1 gateway collects advertising data from iBeacon, Eddystone, Bluetooth LE sensor and other Bluetooth LE devices and sends it to your server by HTTP(S) or MQTT/ using WiFi or Ethernet.
Special features of this gateway are that that it supports both WiFi and Ethernet and has a high throughput of up to 200 Bluetooth LE devices detected per second.
We have a new variant of the waterproof, long range (up to 200m) i3 in stock. This differs to the previous i3 in that it uses the newer Nordic nRF52 SoC for improved battery life up to 5 years depending on the settings and the type of batteries (takes 2 x AA).
This beacon advertises up to 6 channels that can be iBeacon, Eddystone UID, Eddystone URL, Eddystone TLM and device info.
We have some new and updated Minew beacons in stock. We have the updated i7 and new E7 that have new firmware that supports up to 6 advertising slots that can include iBeacon, Eddystone UID, Eddystone URL, Eddystone TLM, device info and in the case of the new E7, acceleration data. These beacons also use the new Nordic nRF52 for improved battery life.
E7
We also have a version of the E7 with standard Minew iBeacon firmware.
There’s also the new small, light C4 that’s suitable for wearing or on a use on a keyring:
C4
Minew have announced new beacon firmware for their newer Nordic nRF52832 based beacons. nRF52 consumes less power than nRF51 based designs. The new firmware and apps support iBeacon and Eddystone (URL, UID, TLM) broadcasting simultaneously.
Beacons supporting the new firmware include the E2 Max Beacon, i7 Rock Beacon, C7 Card Beacon and C6 Wearable Beacon that we hope to have in stock in the near future.
View our current Minew beacons.