iBeacon, Eddystone, Bluetooth, IoT sensor beacons, apps, platforms
The UK NHS has just released the Android and iOS source code for the UK NHS Covid-19 contact tracking app. This is the code used before the recent switch to the Google/Apple mechanism. The iOS readme explains how it works: Our unique identifier is also known as our service characteristic. In the Bluetooth spec, devices … Continue reading “UK NHS Covid-19 Contact Tracking Source Code Available”
Just under a month ago we wrote about Bluetooth RSSI, Social Distancing and Contact Tracing and how the UK Government was going their own way: Google and Apple have implemented a new API to allow contact tracing apps to work well on iOS and Android. Some Governments, such as ours in the UK, have currently … Continue reading “UK Moves to Google-Apple Social Distancing API”
If you are developing using Node, there’s a Node.js module, node-beacon-scanner, that allows you to scan Bluetooth beacon packets and parse the packet data. While Node tends to be associated with Linux, servers and hence web sites, Node can also be used on small single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi. Hence, this module … Continue reading “Node Beacon Scanner”
The BBC has an article on Coronavirus: Why are there doubts over contact-tracing apps? It says: But critics warn this kind of system would be imprecise since some phones detect signals from up to 30m (98ft) away without being able to determine the distance. The BBC took this from information in a Wired article that … Continue reading “Bluetooth Detection Range”
Researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph, Canada, have a new paper on Smart Parking System Based on Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons with Particle Filtering (pdf). The system uses an Android app and Gimbal Series 21 beacons advertising Eddystone. The server side uses an RSSI path loss model, based on Bayesian … Continue reading “Parking System Using Beacons”
Researchers at the Pusan National University, Korea have a new paper on Applying Movement Constraints to BLE RSSI-Based Indoor Positioning for Extracting Valid Semantic Trajectories. The received signal strength (RSSI) of beacons is often used to infer location. However, the RSSI is subject to reflection and blocking from walls, people and other obstacles causing the … Continue reading “Movement Constraint-based Location Tracking”
Nordic, the manufacturer of the System on a Chip (SoC) in most beacons, has a new blog post on Five Things You Didn’t Know About Nordic’s Mobile Development Apps. The post mentions less visible features of nRF Connect on iOS and Android. For example, you can get a useful RSSI graph by dragging the screen … Continue reading “nRF Connect Features”
There’s novel recent research on City Marathon Active Timing System Using Bluetooth Low Energy Technology by Chun-I Sun, Jung-Tang Huang, Shih-Chi Weng and Meng-Fan Chien of Taiwan. The authors discuss the use of beacons vs RFID and create a system using Received Signal Strength Indicator RSSI and gateways connected to detector mats: Beacons are carried … Continue reading “Using Beacons for Race Timing”
Bluetooth Framework is a library for using Bluetooth on Windows. There are editions for .NET, c++ and VCL. While the framework has many features, those of particular interest to Bluetooth LE developers are: Enumerating and managing local Bluetooth radios Searching for remote Bluetooth enabled devices Measuring RSSI Bluetooth LE (BLE) GATT profile client Monitor Bluetooth … Continue reading “Windows Bluetooth Framework”
There’s a useful recent research paper by Basem AL-Madani, Farid Orujov, Rytis Maskeliūnas, Robertas Damaševičius,and Algimantas Venčkauskas on Fuzzy Logic Type-2 Based Wireless Indoor Localization System for Navigation of Visually Impaired People in Buildings. The paper explores indoor location algorithms and implements a fingerprinting system using RSSI that achieves an average error of 0.43m. The … Continue reading “Beacon Based Navigation for the Visually Impaired”