iBeacon, Eddystone, Bluetooth, IoT sensor beacons, apps, platforms
There’s a new app Bluetooth Sleuth by Sean McNeil for iPhone, iPad and Mac. The app scans for advertising devices, optionally with a specific CoreBluetooth UUID, and displays them including RSSI (signal strength). It can connect to devices that are connectable and then browse device the Bluetooth Services and Characteristics. For iBeacons, it’s also possible … Continue reading “Bluetooth Sleuth App”
We have the new Minew F6 Tracker Beacon in stock. Tracker beacons are different from normal beacons in that they are designed to be connected to an app for the majority of the time. Non-tracker beacons just advertise and aren’t usually connected except for setup. The F6 comes with iOS and Android SDKs that provide … Continue reading “New Minew F6 Tracker Beacon”
There are lots of ways of processing Bluetooth signal strength (RSSI) to determine location. Being based on radio, RSSI suffers from fluctuations, over time, even when the sender and receiver don’t move. The College of Surveying and GeoInformatics, Tongji University, Shanghai , China has new research on iBeacon-based method by integrating a trilateration algorithm with … Continue reading “Improving iBeacon Location Accuracy”
You can find the processor chip in the specification section of our beacon descriptions. Most people don’t know what this means or implies. This article will help you make a more informed choice. There are currently three main chip families from Texas Instruments (CC25xx, CC26xx), Dialog Semiconductor (DAxxxx) and Nordic Semiconductor (nRF51xxx and nRF52xxx). These … Continue reading “Differences in Beacon System on a Chip (SoC)”
Most beacons’ configuration app have a setting for iBeacon ‘measured power’ or ‘RSSI at 1m’. This doesn’t change the power output by the beacon. Instead, it’s a value that’s put into the advertising data that declares to receiving devices what the power should be at a distance of 1 meter from the beacon. Receiving devices … Continue reading “What is iBeacon Measured Power?”
Researchers from the The Hong Kong Polytechnic University have a new paper on Performance Evaluation of iBeacon Deployment for Location-Based Services in Physical Learning Spaces (pdf) that tests environmental and deployment factors, indoors and outdoors, related to using ibeacons for locating. It provides recommendations for iBeacon deployment in terms of location, density, transmission interval, fingerprint … Continue reading “iBeacon Deployment Parameters for Locating”
VMware Pivotal Labs recently released Herald open source contact tracing for iOS and Android. Pivotal Labs was previously awarded three contracts worth £4.8m to develop a contact tracing app for the United Kingdom only for it to be abandoned for a new app based on the Google/Apple contact tracing mechanism. Herald can’t be used for … Continue reading “Bluetooth App Insights from VMWare Pivotal Labs”
There’s new research by Guglielmo Marconi University and University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy on Indoor Localization System Based on Bluetooth Low Energy for Museum Applications. The use of location in museums allows personalised tour guidance and on-demand exhibit information to be provided. Location also allows analysis of visitor flows to better design spaces through … Continue reading “Using AI Machine Learning to Infer Distance”
S Sindhumol of Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, India presents recent research into Implementation and Analysis of a Smart Team Management System using iOS Devices as iBeacon (pdf). The key thing about this research is that it uses iOS rather than a beacon to advertise iBeacon. The system allows the entire team to … Continue reading “Remote Team Management Using iOS as an iBeacon”
There’s new research by Chi-Fang Chien, Hui-Tzu Chen and Chi-Yi Lin of Tamkang University, New Taipei City, Taiwan on A Low-Cost On-Street Parking Management System Based on Bluetooth Beacons (pdf). Current smart parking systems are very expensive as they rely on image recognition and wireless magnetometers. The image recognition isn’t perfect and sometimes fails to … Continue reading “Vehicle Parking Management Using iBeacons”