A critical use for beacons is protecting lone workers or those that might experience duress. Lone worker solutions traditionally used RFID that required workers to manually check-in to locations. If workers forgot or were in trouble you only knew their last location. Newer systems such as Motorola TRBONet used with 2-way radios and BeaconRTLS™ used with generic beacons allow continual tracking of location.
Another usecase related to lone working is warning workers when they are about to enter a hazardous area. An example of this is Lone Worker Solutions’ Safe Beacon feature that creates a virtual perimeter. If a control room needs to know someone has entered (or left) a zone, real time locating systems (RTLS) like BeaconRTLS™ can be used to set up zones with alerts.
It’s also possible to have workers press a button on a beacon as a form of SOS when they are under duress. An example of this is HID Global’s new Badge Beacon that addresses the growing need to protect doctors, nurses and other caregivers from threatening situations that arise in the hospital environment. This can also been done in a generic way by using a RTLS and detecting a beacon button press. Simpler solutions are also possible by having a simple app on the worker’s phone detect the beacon button press and send an alert.
Read about BeaconRTLS™
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