Bluetooth SIG Mesh Rationale

If you take a look at the recently announced Bluetooth SIG mesh, it’s described by three specifications with around 1000 pages! It took three years to create. So what’s the rationale that caused it to be so complex?

For some answers, take a look at Szymon Slupik’s personal blog. Szymon is the Chair Mesh Working Group at Bluetooth SIG and his posts give a fascinating insight into the thinking behind the Bluetooth SIG mesh.

Start with the post on Bluetooth Mesh – The Launch and then read about The Packet, Depth, Flexibility and Scalability.

You can also follow Szymon on Twitter.

Read more about Bluetooth mesh on our web site.

Catch Rodents with the Help of Beacons

There’s an interesting Video on YouTube by Marcus Rangell who has used a RuvviTag to get a notification when a mousetrap has been triggered:

Using a RuuviTag is probably over-engineering the solution. Any beacon that provides motion triggered broadcast would be suitable. Also, it’s simpler to use gateways to scan the beacons.

While this scenario might seem frivolous, the problem is real and some US companies already implement trap activation detection. There are many warehouses, food factories and food storage facilities that have rodent problems. The usual mouse and rat traps are ok but they need checking regularly as decaying rodents also aren’t desirable. Triggered traps also need re-arming as they are the ones most likely to catch more rodents. Doing the checking manually across many sites can be a full time job for many people. Trigger detection can be automated such that only triggered traps have to be visited and the resultant data can be used to automate the creation of simple reports of the most troublesome sites/areas.

One Beacon App – Many Uses

Many existing or new mobile apps can be made more immersive and hence improve retention through the use of beacons. Sometimes, app authors add beacon detection and suddenly realise their app is also useful to totally different usecases.

One such app is Tourist Chat which started out as a travel app to allow tourists to connect. The author recently started using the same app and server side to support exhibition events.  Many beacon apps are essentially the same. They detect beacons and match this up to information in a server-side CMS. The ‘use’ or scenario can be many things: for example travel, exhibitions, hotels, retail, galleries and museums.

If you are creating a beacon-driven app, take a moment to think how it might also be re-purposed for other types of user. You might find a new market and revenue stream with relatively little effort.

Bleah Linux Bluetooth Utility

There’s a new command line Python-based utility for Linux called Bleah that describes itself as a “BLE scanner for smart devices hacking”. Don’t let the ‘hacking’ part put you off – all it does is scan for devices and enumerate/use Bluetooth GATT Service much like the many apps for iOS and Android like Nordic nRF Connect. Nevertheless, it’s useful should you need to do these things from Linux rather than mobile apps.

If you use this utility (or mobile apps) you need to be aware that most Beacons are not connectable by default and most have password protected Bluetooth Services preventing you writing to them without having written the password to a specific Service. You will need to read the documentation for the beacon to determine how to make it connectable and to ascertain the default password.

Motorola Radios and iBeacons

Motorola manufacture the MOTOTRBO range of digital radios that can detect iBeacons.

Used together with the TRBOnet PLUS (pdf) control room software, the location of people with digital radios can be plotted onto maps:

Supported handsets currently include:

  • MOTOTRBO DP4000e Series
  • MOTOTRBO SL4000e Series
  • MOTOTRBO DP3441e
  • MOTOTRBO DP3661e

Motorola handsets work with any iBeacons. We recently supplied beacons to a power station for lone worker monitoring using TRBOnet PLUS. Buy from our wide range of iBeacons.

Are you an established 2-way radio company?
Contact us for advice on which beacons we have supplied for use with TRBOnet.

Beacons and The 4th Industrial Revolution

We previously wrote about how beacons are part of Industry 4.0 and how implementations need to achieve a return on investment. Industry 4.0 is also being called ‘The 4th Industrial Revolution’ (4IR).

Oracle and the EEF have an excellent free, recent, paper (registration NOT required) on The 4th Industrial Revolution: A Primer for Manufacturers. It concludes 4IR isn’t hype and should be taken seriously. Here’s how manufacturers themselves see 4IR:

Manufacturing is undergoing a transformation. The report says it’s all about data connectivity. However, the report falls short on explaining how data can be sensed and captured. Sensor beacons, gateways and beacon platforms such as our BeaconRTLS are one such solution that helps fill that gap.

Read more about beacons and the IoT

New Minew Firmware

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.

Beacons in Metro Stations

There’s a new article today at Global Rail News on how MTR, who run the Hong Kong metro, is trialling Bluetooth beacon navigation at Admiralty Station.

“As well as helping customers navigate the station itself, one of the new features, “Fast Exit”, will tell passengers which train car and door number to board when they set off on their journey in order to be closest to the exit at their destination station.”

The pilot is part of MTR’s Rail Gen 2.0 programme.

Beware of Beacon App Generators

We are seeing more and more organisations using our beacons with apps that have been created using (online) app generation services. If you are one of these organisations then you ought to be made aware of a recent change to Apple’s review guidelines:

Section 4.2.6 states:

Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected

There’s discussion on this on the Apple forums and on reddit.

Whatever your or others’ view of this, Apple have already started cleaning the hundreds of thousands of titles from App Store. Beware that if you use an app generator, your app might get rejected and even if it’s accepted it might some day be taken down.