iBeacon, Eddystone, Bluetooth, IoT sensor beacons, apps, platforms
There’s a new GitHub Swift source code project, cbeacon, that implements a command line program that transmits iBeacon advertisements. It works on macOS 10.12 or greater.
The author is also the author of another application, BeaconFinder, written in objective-c, that provides GUI tool for detecting iBeacons:
There’s a recent paper on Analyzing of Gender Behaviors from Paths Using Process Mining: A Shopping Mall Application (pdf).
The authors use a ‘process mining’ algorithm to look at infrequent and incomplete data from a beacon event log. They analysed 642 customer paths of which 165 were male and 477 female. These were beacons people voluntarily carried as part of the study, not Bluetooth from their smartphones.
The aim was to determine popular store groups, duration of visits and customer behaviour. They learnt that male customers had a loop between clothing-catering and clothing-supermarket. Female customers had a clothing-catering loop. Customers who spent more time in catering spent less time in clothing and vice versa. Male customers visited fewer store groups and visited stores in an unplanned way. Catering and clothing were the most popular store groups depending on the time (of year)
The paper concludes that Bluetooth is a cost-effective tracking technology that provides unbiased and uninfluenced observations.
There’s an interesting recent article from the International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) on Smart Workplace – Using iBeacon (pdf).
The article explains how iBeacon can be used to log the entry and exit of people and describes GPS activated by iBeacon.
Ever wondered where our Minew beacons originate? Minew have a new video, with strange ‘robo’ voice, showing their offices and factory:
Silicon Labs have a new video that explains and demonstrates angle of arrival (AoA) and angle of departure (AoD):
They also have a paper explaining how AoA works.
It was recently reported that Waze expands its Bluetooth beacons to New York City to end GPS signal blackouts. If you want to see how the system works, take a look at the recent video of Waze Bluetooth beacons in the Bjørnegård tunnel:
The video shows in-tunnel navigation and at the end there’s a more entertaining piece that shows the strength of the 3M VHB stickers.
There’s a new Bluetooth LE Wiki maintained by our founder, Simon Judge:
The Wiki includes information about Bluetooth LE idioms such as advertising, MAC address, Bluetooth name, GATT, transmit power, measured power, range, RSSI, mesh and the new direction finding feature. It also has links to hardware and programming information.
We previously wrote about Using Beacons, iBeacons for Asset Tracking and Bluetooth vs UWB vs RFID for RTLS. This post considers the strengths of Bluetooth for asset tracking and provides some insights if you looking for asset tracking software.
The traditional way of tracking assets using barcodes, NFC or RFID requires that someone of something scan the items at very close range. Bluetooth has the advantage that it works up to 70m, sometimes up to 300m allowing the reading to be done:
The affect of ‘continuously’ is subtle but powerful. With traditional scanning, information as to the whereabouts of an item is only as good as the last scan that could be minutes, hours or even days ago. If the item moves without scanning, finding it can be very difficult. Bluetooth asset tracking is updated continuously.
Although beacons cost more than barcodes, NFC and RFID, the readers, usually gateways, cost considerably (x10) less. As the beacons are Bluetooth, for some scenarios the readers are ‘free’ as you can use smartphones already in use. Nevertheless, beacons cost ($5 to $40) more than barcodes so tend to be used on aggregated items such as pallets and sub-assemblies or on single valuable items.
Beacons go beyond simple simple assets tracking into the Internet of Things (IoT). The same beacons can monitor quantities such as vibration, temperature, humidity, light, proximity, smoke and gas. Using beacons for extra purposes such as sensing and providing triggered information about assets can often be the most compelling aspect of using beacons.
When it comes to software, think carefully. Most people expect functionality similar to traditional barcode-based asset tracking with software on a server somewhere. While the equivalent exists in the form of RTLS systems that put beacons onto maps and plans, it’s sometimes possible to implement a simpler solution to get the job done. Could your requirements be met with just an app? One such example is the work we did for Malvern instruments that’s a simple app that does a stock check by scanning for beacons as the user moves about their site. Also, we have found that many organisations don’t actually need a full asset management solution but instead need something that can capture beacon data and make it available to their existing systems. Our BeaconServer™ fulfils that role.
Read about Asset Tracking for Manufacturers
Russ Sharer, Vice-President of Global Marketing for Fulham, a manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting sub-systems has written an article in Health Estate Journal (pdf) on the use of iBeacons in healthcare.
Russ says it’s often difficult to find life saving equipment in hospitals and many organisations have to compensate by purchasing more equipment than they need. However, in use, equipment still gets misplaced, usually just at the critical time it is needed. He explains how the use of Bluetooth beacons and mesh can solve this problem. The article provides a great introduction to iBeacons and some issues such as the affect of frequency of transmission on battery life.
While the article mentions Bluetooth Mesh and iBeacons, these specific technologies don’t always have to be used. Gateways can be used instead of mesh to allow greater throughput of data. Also, any beacons, not just iBeacons, can be used as it’s usually the MAC address of the beacon that’s used for identification purposes. Using sensor beacons allows further scenarios, for example, monitoring the temperature of expensive medicines.
There are also many more scenarios for the use of beacons in healthcare than are mentioned in the article. Our beacons are being using to track hundreds of dementia patients. We have also been involved in a project to use beacons for navigation in large hospitals. Once there’s a network of beacons in a hospital, it’s possible to add lots of widely varying solutions.
Mr Beacon has a new video showing what’s inside Wiliot – inside their offices, factory and inside their battery-less Bluetooth sensor tag.
The video explains how the tag has two processors. The first, a standard ARM Cortex M0, is used for main processing while the second works using only extremely low, nano Watts of, power. The low power processor schedules jobs for the Cortex M0 for when the tag has harvested enough energy.
Wiliot are mixing the best of the Bluetooth and RFID ecosystems. They are taking RFID-like production and costs and combining it with the advantages of Bluetooth’s ability to communicate with ubiquitous devices.