Category: iBeacon

Beacon Compatibility

We previously wrote a lot about beacon compatibility where we concluded that phone compatibility is more of an issue than beacon compatibility and that you might choose an Apple MFi certified beacon if you wanted additional assurance. However, what does MFi mean?

Certified beacons meet Apple’s beacon specifications. There was a time that these specifications were secret and only available to MFi partners. However, these have since become available after you have ok’d an agreement. If you wish to view them, go to the iBeacon for Developers web page and click on Download Artwork and Specifications.

Using Beacons For a Library Tour

There’s an interesting article at code4lib on Creation of a Library Tour Application for Mobile Equipment using iBeacon Technology by Virginia Tech. It describes a project where a QR code driven library tour was updated to use beacons.

Some insights include how attractive beacons can become ‘lost’, the problem of replacing batteries, limited battery life due to the iOS requirement for beacons to advertise every 100ms and challenges physically fixing beacons.

As mentioned in our article on Choosing an Advertising Interval, it’s possible to set the advertising interval to between 300ms and 600ms while maintaining a reasonable detection time. Also, had the library chosen Android tablets they could have used a much longer advertising interval. 100ms is an artificial thing set by Apple for very quick detection on iOS devices. On Android, the scanning is more controllable,you can scan for longer and hence have beacons that advertise less often and have much longer battery life.

iB004 PLUS Sensor Beacon Available

We now have a limited number of iB004 PLUS beacons in stock with an additional SHT20 temperature/humidity sensor. The iB004 is one of the most commonly used (and re-branded) beacons and the ‘PLUS’ part means it has a larger CR2477 battery rather than the CR2450 in the original iB004. The larger battery means there’s a longer 100m (vs 70m) range and longer battery life.

ib004plus-temp_smaller

The temperature/humidity version has a small hole in the top to allow the environment, external to the case, to be sensed.

Inside the iB001M

Here’s a look inside our smallest beacon, the iB001M. The circuit board measures only 2cm across and the height of the beacon is is only 2.6mm.

ib001m_inside_smaller

The waterproof iB001M can transmit iBeacon and Eddystone at the same time. There’s also a press switch to turn on/off and a buzzer that’s found in the top side of the beacon (not shown) together with the waterproof ring. This beacon can be set up to only transmit advertising data when motion is detected.

It weighs only 4g so is great for wearable and pet-related applications.