Category: Beacons

Bluetooth AoA Direction Finding Antenna Design

We have previously mentioned that antenna design is a complex area that will slow the rollout of Bluetooth AoA direction finding solutions. What are the issues?

Theodoros Prokic of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology has a new paper on the Antenna Design for Angle of Arrival Measurement in Access Control Applications (pdf) that explores the antennas needed for two sides of an in an inside-outside scenario.

The paper provides an analysis of the challenges the antenna designer faces when creating an AoA solution. Issues include orientation and polarization, matching, coupling, reflections, phase center, and physical size. Designing and creating antennas can easily lead to inconsistent results due to the affects of hardware, cables and other testing equipment in the vicinity.

IoT Priority and Asset Tracking

Gartner has a new report Hype Cycle for the Internet of Things 2019, in which they say:

“The Priority Matrix shows that many IoT technologies are 5 years from mainstream adoption. However only one innovation profile will reach maturity in 2 years, indoor location for assets.

So why is ‘indoor location for assets’ more likely to achieve mainstream adoption sooner than other technologies? It’s because there are clear benefits for most companies and off-the-shelf software such as our BeaconRTLS™ is already available.

Our work with companies shows they are nevertheless cautious. Companies are taking time to understand the competing asset tracking technologies and are performing, sometimes lengthy, trials to determine how new systems will integrate with existing systems. They are considering the implications of SAAS vs on-premise solutions, the availability of second-sourced beacon hardware and the compromises of accuracy vs system complexity and cost.

Simple In Out Uses Beacons

Simple In Out is an employee in/out board that works across multiple platforms:

As well as providing a useful visual display of who’s in and out it’s also possible to use the system for employee timekeeping, notifications when people come in/out and integration with Slack or other systems via web hooks or the API.

Simple in/out uses the employees’ phone’s operating system to detect the geographical area using cell towers or local WiFi Networks. It’s possible to use beacons to improve the accuracy. Beacons are better when you need to use Simple In Out with smaller areas (10-20 metres), moving areas or areas with poor cellular reception or no WiFi.

Kiosk Pro for iOS Uses iBeacons

Kiosk Pro is an app for iOS that turns an iPad into a public kiosk.

The technical documentation shows how you can trigger the showing of specific information when in the vicinity of a particular beacon. For example, if the kiosk is static, people with different beacons might trigger the showing of different information. If the kiosk is moving, for example a tablet being held, it might trigger the showing of different information based on the location of, for example, different exhibits. The kiosk can also be set to advertise iBeacon that can be picked up in iOS and Android apps.

View iBeacons

Recording Employees’ Working Hours

We have been seeing an increase in the number of beacon-based employee clocking in/out systems. This is due to a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice that said that EU companies must have something in place to provide an “objective, reliable and accessible system” that allows the duration of time worked each day to be measured. This is so that it can be confirmed that companies and organisations are complying with the Fundamental Rights Charter and the Working Time Directive.

Some employers and employers’ federations have been critical of the need for modern versions of the ‘punch card’. Some employees also resent being tracked to such a degree. In today’s mobile, flexible working environments, it’s often not practical to track work-related activities performed outside the main workplace. The definition of work is also open to interpretation. For example, is replying to a work email, at home, outside working hours, counted as work?

As with many EU rules, these things can’t be clearly defined and aren’t properly policed. In this case, companies and organisations will come under scrutiny if employees or their unions go to court for non-compliance with working time regulations. Some industries such as construction need time tracking anyway for contractor billing and safety. It’s for each organisation to assess the risk. For those deciding they need time tracking, beacons provide an automated solution.

Building Construction Industry Time and Attendance Tracking

One of our clients Chime Software Limited, part of Wren Construction, is offering a Time and Attendance Tracking system for the building construction industry. It’s a mobile and desktop solution allowing teams to easily collaborate.

The clock in and clock out uses iBeacons. It’s possible to view and authorise timesheets either from your desktop or mobile phone. It’s also possible to take textual and photographic notes for sharing across a team or project.

DoubleDutch Event Management Platform Uses iBeacons

Today, we learnt that the DoubleDutch event management platform supports iBeacons.

We are discovering more and more apps and platforms are adding support for beacons. Beacons are moving from being the main, usually uncompelling, focus for an app or service to being an adjunct to provide for, much more useful, location specific functionality.

DoubleDutch allows location and time based messages can be set up for events. This works with all iBeacons.

View iBeacons

Logistics and Manufacturing Pallet Tracking with Beacons

Tracking loaded pallets saves a significant amount of time, effort and hence cost in logistics and manufacturing. Pallets might contain stock, components or sub-assemblies. The top usecase is finding a particular pallet quickly. However, sensing need not be limited to pallets. Extending tracking to forklifts, racking and even people provides additional business benefits. For example, we have previously been asked to provide for the following scenarios:

“I need to ensure best use of my forklifts. Tell me when one hasn’t moved for 2 minutes.”

“I need to know if a forklift has crashed into racking.”

“I run a warehouse containing hazardous materials. If evacuation is needed, I need to know everyone has evacuated the building even if someone has temporarily gone off site”

These situations, and more, are solvable using Bluetooth beacons (In terms of asset tracking, beacons are sometimes called tags).

RFID and barcodes can also be used for tracking. However, the information is only as good as the last scan that might have been a long time ago after which the asset might have moved without being scanned. The advantage of beacons is that they repeatedly advertise so the information is always up to date.

Further advantages of Bluetooth tags are:

  • Being commodity items rather than specialist devices, tags and readers are relatively inexpensive compared to other proprietary technologies such as ultra wideband (UWB).
  • They consume very low power and battery lifetimes of 5 to 10 years are possible.
  • They are readable from handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets, providing for additional possibilities within the warehouse.

Software such as our BeaconServer™ and BeaconRTLS™ can be used to track what’s where over time, create notifications and integrate with your existing systems.

Once you have some current and historical data you can also start to do clever things such as automatically detecting and predicting over or under utilisation, finding pinch points or detecting valuable equipment about to be stolen.

Read about Asset Tracking for Manufacturers

Bluetooth LE Developer Questions

Here are the top questions we get asked as a Bluetooth LE developer:

  • For apps, can the app work without Bluetooth and location on?
    No. There’s no special OS mechanism on iOS nor Android that uses Bluetooth LE without the user having Bluetooth and location on. Many users leave Bluetooth and location on to allow ease of use with cars and audio headphones. Location is also usually one due to use with maps.
  • How does leaving Bluetooth on affect battery life?
    Bluetooth is no longer drains the battery as was the case in the early days of smartphones. It can be left on with negligible extra battery use.
  • What’s the maximum range?
    The range depends most on the Bluetooth device to are connecting to. Most devices, running on battery, work 50m to 100m. Devices with larger batteries, running from mains or USB can work up hundreds of metres. We have a device that works up to 4000m.
  • What SDK should be used?
    Most, but not all, SDKs and 3rd party libraries tend to be poorly implemented/documented, tie your code into using a particular beacon and rarely get updated to use newer mobile platform APIs. We recommend software use the iOS and Android Bluetooth APIs directly to make your code independent of the beacon type and readily able to be updated when the mobile platforms themselves are updated.

Read about our Bluetooth LE Software Development Services