{"id":4970,"date":"2020-04-23T09:50:32","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T09:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4970"},"modified":"2020-04-23T09:50:33","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T09:50:33","slug":"bluetooth-detection-range","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/bluetooth-detection-range\/","title":{"rendered":"Bluetooth Detection Range"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The BBC has an article on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-52353720\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Coronavirus: Why are there doubts over contact-tracing apps?<\/a> It says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The BBC took this from information in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.co.uk\/article\/bluetooth-contact-tracing-apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Wired article<\/a> that says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#8230; but with Bluetooth being able to ping other phones within a 30-metre range, without precision, there\u2019s an increased chance of the app alerting you to false positives of people who have never even come into contact with you<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>This isn&#8217;t correct and misunderstands how the Bluetooth signal is being used. Receiving devices, such as smartphones, don&#8217;t just see the beacon signal but also have a received signal strength (RSSI) that can be used to infer distance. Our post on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/testing-if-a-beacon-is-working\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">testing if a beacon is working<\/a> explains and shows this value in the nRF Connect app running on Android.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While not fake news, the BBC and Wired are providing incorrect information. In these times, in the rush and panic, too many things are being written that aren&#8217;t thoroughly researched.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/bluetooth-detection-range\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Bluetooth Detection Range&#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],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970"}],"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=4970"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4972,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970\/revisions\/4972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}