{"id":10200,"date":"2026-07-31T09:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T09:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10200"},"modified":"2026-07-31T09:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T09:13:07","slug":"detecting-when-a-child-enters-remains-in-or-leaves-a-playground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/detecting-when-a-child-enters-remains-in-or-leaves-a-playground\/","title":{"rendered":"Detecting When a Child Enters, Remains in or Leaves a Playground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2624-6120\/7\/4\/67\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">new paper<\/a> presents a low-cost system that uses Bluetooth Low Energy beacons to detect when a child enters, remains in or leaves a playground. Each child carries a Bluetooth beacon, while a single smartphone installed at the playground scans the beacon\u2019s signal strength. Entry and exit events are then sent to a server, which issues push notifications to caregivers and creates daily, weekly and monthly activity records.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"828\" height=\"437\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/playground.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/playground.jpg 828w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/playground-300x158.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/playground-768x405.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p> <br>Because BLE signal strength can fluctuate due to obstacles, reflections and movement, the system applies Kalman filtering and time-based thresholds rather than reacting to every change in RSSI. This reduces false alerts near the playground boundary, although it introduces a delay of several seconds and can miss very brief exits followed by rapid re-entry.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"749\" height=\"488\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/playgroundsystem.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/playgroundsystem.jpg 749w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/playgroundsystem-300x195.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><br>Field tests across five playgrounds reported an average detection accuracy of about 99.2% and an average response time of roughly 6.5 seconds. A separate test with ten beacons detected 39 of 40 events, giving 97.5% accuracy. The results suggest that BLE beacons are effective for simple presence and entry\/exit monitoring, but not for precise positioning. Performance may also vary with weather, site layout, crowds and beacon placement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new paper presents a low-cost system that uses Bluetooth Low Energy beacons to detect when a child enters, remains in or leaves a playground. Each child carries a Bluetooth beacon, while a single smartphone installed at the playground scans the beacon\u2019s signal strength. Entry and exit events are then sent to a server, which &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/detecting-when-a-child-enters-remains-in-or-leaves-a-playground\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Detecting When a Child Enters, Remains in or Leaves a Playground&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4,93],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10200"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10208,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10200\/revisions\/10208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}