Turn Your iPhone into an iBeacon

If you into Beacon-enabled apps, there’s a new free iOS app now allows your iPhone to function as an iBeacon. This tool is particularly useful for developers looking to test their applications without the need for additional hardware. This eliminates the need for purchasing a physical beacon.

However, there are a few things to keep in mind. One notable downside is that using your iPhone as a beacon will drain your battery much faster. If you use this app, make sure the iPhone remains on charge.

Although this app is designed to mimic iBeacon functionality, neither the app description on the App Store nor the interface within the app mentions ‘iBeacon’. Instead, the term ‘Beacon’ is used. This is not an oversight but a deliberate choice, as Apple prohibits the use of the term ‘iBeacon’ by third-party developers. It’s a strange, pedantic restriction, but one that developers must navigate.

If you are serious about Beacon technology, investing in a physical beacon might still be the better route in the long run. They are relatively inexpensive and offer the advantage of not impacting your phone’s battery life.

CliqTags App for Marketing Using Beacons

In the early days of Bluetooth beacons, many businesses were excited about the prospect of sending unsolicited messages directly to people’s phones as they walked by. This was once possible through the Google Nearby service, a feature that allowed notifications to be sent to users without the need for an app. However, in 2018, Google shut down the Nearby service, effectively ending unsolicited beacon messaging. Since then, the way we interact with Bluetooth beacons has evolved significantly.

Today, if you want to notify users through a beacon, you need an app. This app must be capable of detecting nearby beacons and presenting relevant information to the user. For businesses and developers, this means you have a few options. You could modify an existing app to detect beacons, create a new app from scratch, or use a third-party app specifically designed for this purpose such as CliqTags.

CliqTags offers two versatile app, CliqTags Nearby and CliqTags Spotter, that help businesses use the power of Bluetooth beacons:

CliqTags Nearby: Simple, Seamless, and Independent

CliqTags Nearby is an app that uses the Eddystone-URL advertising format to detect beacons and display site information directly to users. Unlike Google’s old Nearby implementation, CliqTags Nearby fetches information directly from the site, making it a seamless and independent experience. Users can click the button to visit the site directly, without relying on any external services, not even CliqTags. The app is available for free on both Google Play and the Apple App Store, and it can be private-branded and customised to meet specific business needs.

CliqTags Spotter: Advanced Functionality with iBeacon Technology

CliqTags Spotter takes things a step further by using iBeacon technology. When an iBeacon is detected, the app communicates with the CliqTags server to translate the iBeacon ID into a corresponding website. One of the standout features of CliqTags Spotter is its ability to reconfigure beacon IDs over time, allowing different content to be associated with the same beacon. This flexibility extends to geofencing, providing a level of control that businesses can manage via the CliqTags server. Due to its complexity and customisability, CliqTags Spotter isn’t available in app stores. Instead, it’s offered as a private-branded solution tailored to the specific needs of businesses.

New KKM Wireless Tilt Sensor K9AT

Our partner and supplier, KKM, has a new K9AT Wireless Tilt Sensor The K9AT Tilt Sensor is designed to convert accelerometer measurements into precise tilt angle detections. What makes it stand out is its ability to trigger advertisements once it detects an inclination beyond a pre-set value.

The sensor has an IP67 rating, ensuring it is both water-resistant and dustproof. One of the most impressive aspects of the K9AT Tilt Sensor is its longevity. Powered by an industrial-grade ER14505 battery, it offers an extended battery life of up to 8 years.

The applications of the K9AT are vast and varied. From construction and agriculture to automotive and shipping, this sensor can play a critical role in improving operational efficiency and safety. Its ability to provide real-time alerts on angle changes makes it an invaluable tool for monitoring equipment, cargo, and even structural integrity.

For more information or to discuss how it can benefit your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Disguise Your Beacons!

Our customers often tell use that beacons go missing early after installation. People will steal beacons even if they are password protected and can’t be re-used. They don’t know they are useless and steal them anyway.

We once had a strange request from the UK Transport Police to supply our “ugliest beacons”. In some situations, the requirement is for beacons that will blend into the environment rather than advertise their presence visually. While high visibility, attractive beacons might be great for proof of concepts and demos, in the real world beacons that blend into their environment work best.

There’s often a temptation to hide beacons behind things. However, beware of blocking the radio signal and hence reducing the range. We had a client use beacons in a stadium and they painted them to camouflage them from view. Hide your beacons, but don’t block the signal.

Improving RSSI Using Relabelling

Researchers from Japan have a new Relabelling Approach to Signal Patterns for Beacon-based Indoor Localization in Nursing Care Facility. Bluetooth beacons were used in a nursing care facility to enhance the tracking and location estimation of caregivers. These beacons were strategically placed throughout the facility, particularly outside patient rooms and in common areas. The caregivers carried smartphones with a mobile application called FonLog installed, which recorded the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) readings from the beacons and logged location labels.

The beacons were set to a frequency of 10 Hz with a coverage range of up to five meters. The main challenge addressed in this study was the signal loss and limited data, which affected the accuracy of indoor localisation. To improve the data quality, a relabelling approach was applied. This involved observing the signal patterns in different rooms and using these patterns to augment the training data by relabelling RSSI values from one location as samples for another location with low data samples.

This approach aimed to increase the dataset and improve the model’s accuracy in recognising the caregivers’ locations. By doing so, the accuracy of the indoor localisation model improved, achieving an accuracy of 74%, which was a 5% improvement over the original data. The use of Random Forest for location recognition further enhanced the performance, demonstrating the effectiveness of combining relabelling with machine learning techniques for indoor localisation in a healthcare setting.

New Nordic Semiconductor Wireless Quarter

Nordic Semiconductor, the leading manufacturer of System on a Chip (SoC) used in most beacons and the top supplier of SoCs for Bluetooth LE solutions, has released the latest PDF edition of Wireless Quarter Magazine. This issue highlights the diverse applications of Nordic’s SoCs.

The latest issue of the magazine highlights the increasing use of the Nordic SoCs in health. There are details on a smart ring that delivers non-invasive diabetic risk assessment and a Bluetooth LE hybrid smartwatch that delivers accurate health data.

There are also in-depth articles on how Bluetooth is transforming the industrial Internet of Things, the smart home and precision air quality monitoring. There’s also news that the nRF Connect SDK now supports Google’s Find My Device network.

Using Beacons to Understand Social Drinking

A new study Detecting and Understanding Social Influence During Drinking Situations: Protocol for a Bluetooth-Based Sensor Feasibility and Acceptability, from Brown University United States, evaluates the feasibility and acceptability of using Bluetooth beacons and a smartphone app to measure social interactions in real-world drinking situations among young adults. The background of the study highlights that high-risk drinking often occurs in social settings among peers and the objective was to explore how Bluetooth-based sensors could detect real-time social interactions during drinking events. This data could then inform just-in-time interventions to mitigate risky behaviours.

Participants in the study included 20 young adults who engage in heavy social drinking. Each participant was asked to recruit three friends to carry Bluetooth beacons. These beacons emitted Bluetooth signals detectable by the participants’ smartphones, and a specialised smartphone app triggered reports based on the proximity of these beacons. The data collection was facilitated through Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), which involved random, signal-contingent, and morning reports to gather information on alcohol use and social interactions. Reports were triggered when a beacon came within 15 feet of a participant for at least 15 minutes.

During the EMA protocol, participants completed different types of reports. Signal-contingent reports were triggered by the app when a peer’s beacon was detected nearby. Random reports were issued three times daily at random intervals to capture spontaneous interactions and behaviours. Morning reports collected daily data on the previous day’s activities and first-drink reports were initiated by participants when they began drinking.

The implications of the study’s findings are significant. They could inform the development of interventions that provide real-time feedback and support to individuals in high-risk drinking situations, potentially reducing alcohol-related harms. The use of passive sensing technology, such as Bluetooth beacons, enhances the effectiveness of just-in-time interventions by accurately detecting social contexts that influence drinking behaviour.

Beacons are a Technology, Not the Solution

There’s an interesting app/service called Voolsy, in India, that uses iBeacons to enable a slick restaurant mobile app. The key thing here is that beacons are mentioned just once on their web pages. The emphasis is, instead, on making it “easy to place order & pay bills”.

Take a look at your current and proposed beacon-based solution and see if you can remove almost all references to beacons and instead concentrate on the problem being solved for your users. That way you are more likely to engage customers and less likely to alienate them with what’s, to them, incomprehensible technology. Beacons are an enabling technology, not the solution.

Customers are primarily interested in how a product or service can solve their problems or meet their needs. Emphasising the solution simplifies communication, making it easier for customers to understand and appreciate the benefits.

Enhancing Behavioral Health Monitoring Through Bluetooth Proximity Detection

New research by researchers from Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences Brown University, USA looks into A Bluetooth-Based Smartphone App for Detecting Peer Proximity: Protocol for Evaluating Functionality and Validity.

The study describes a Bluetooth-based smartphone app designed to detect the physical proximity of peers, particularly to monitor health behaviours like alcohol consumption. The app uses Bluetooth beacons and aims to improve upon traditional Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) by reducing reliance on participant self-reporting through the passive detection of social interactions.

The primary objective is to develop and validate a system using Bluetooth beacons to passively detect when two or more individuals are in close proximity. The methodology involves 20 participants aged 18-29 years, using a smartphone app to collect data over three weeks. Participants’ influential peers carry Bluetooth beacons, and the app records when beacons come into proximity.

The technology could have significant applications in monitoring and intervening in health behaviours by providing real-time, accurate data on social interactions that influence these behaviours. This could be particularly useful in developing “just-in-time” adaptive interventions targeted at high-risk behaviours as they occur.

Results from the study are expected to be reported by 2025, with potential implications for enhancing the accuracy and efficacy of behavioural health interventions. The technology and methodology developed could be applicable to a broader range of behaviours and settings where social context plays a critical role in health outcomes.

New KKM Waterproof Sensor Beacon

We have the new, waterproof sensor beacon S5 in stock.

This beacon measures temperature, humidity and 3-axis acceleration. It also logs up to 60,000 temperature and humidity records, viewable in the manufacturer’s app. It has a 180m range and also supports Bluetooth 5 coded PHY, when supported by the receiving device, for a longer range of 600m. It’s also the only beacon we know of, that comes with a temperature/humidity calibration certificate.