Troubleshooting Beacon Problems

Some people come to us, having set up their beacons, saying “It doesn’t work”. Most scenarios involve a beacon, an app and a phone. Solving most problems involves breaking the problem down by swapping out each of the beacon, app and phone until it works.

If you have more than one beacon, you can swap out the beacon. Having said this, it’s rare for beacons to fail and if the problem is with the beacon, it’s more likely to be the beacon settings that are incorrect.

While you can’t swap out the manufacturer configuration app, you can use another app such as Nordic’s nRF Connect (on iOS and Android) to scan for a beacon, see if it’s advertising and if so, what type of advertising it is sending.

It’s common for individual phones to have have problems. First, make sure you have Location and Bluetooth on. Anyone working with beacons will usually need to have both Android and iOS devices to diagnose problems. Run the app (and nRF Connect) on multiple phones of different platform type (iOS/Android) to help narrow down problems.

If you still can’t get it working, send us a support ticket. Please don’t just say “It doesn’t work” and instead describe what you have done and at what stage it doesn’t work with any error messages.

Also read

Why Doesn’t the Manufacturer’s Configuration App Connect?

Testing if a Beacon is Working