Bluetooth Beacon Applications In The Real World
A Bluetooth beacon is a Low Energy device that allows a company to provide clients with location-based services. Beacons have an advantage over GPS services in that they do not need a satellite and can give location services both indoors and underground.
The fundamental process that allows beacons to function is known as ‘advertising.’ In this procedure, the devices use Bluetooth low energy beacon technology to transmit data packets, which are detected by other scanning systems nearby, such as smartphones.
Several Forms of Beacons
There are several different types of beacons available on the market. The iBeacon is the original from Apple. It transmits a universally unique identity using Bluetooth low-energy proximity sensing technique. A smartphone with the relevant app loaded on it can detect this UUID. iBeacons exist in a variety of shapes and sizes, including USB sticks and miniature coin cell devices.
There are some licensing requirements for iBeacon. A manufacturer license from Apple is required to create iBeacon devices, as well as a license needed for the iBeacon logo. The AltBeacon, which was invented by Radius Networks some years ago, is an alternative to the iBeacon.
It was created to create an open marketplace for Bluetooth beacon applications. It is completely free to use, and anyone can utilize their technology to create beacons. Google has also released a beacon called Eddystone. It’s an open beacon format with an Apache Open License, making it simple to use. The Proximity Beacon Application Programming Interface from Google allows businesses to control their beacons.
Packets Of Advertising
The packets are made up of 37 octets of information, with six allocated for the device address. A Bluetooth beacon uses the remaining 31 octets to hold data. The 31 octets are broken down into fields called Advertisement Data (AD) Types. The AD Types are three-part structured data types:
- A length byte
- An associated value
- A type indicator
The manufacturer data field is an AD type that can be used with beacons. It allows the producer to fill in blanks in an advertising data packet with data.
However, there is one stipulation. The firm ID, which is provided by the Bluetooth SIG, must be present in the first two octets. Because iBeacon is owned by Apple, the supplier data field’s initial two bytes must contain Apple’s firm identity.
There is an iBeacon type value after the firm ID, followed by a length field. Then there’s a UUID, which is essentially the firm that owns the beacons. All of the beacons at a given shopping mall are a good example of this. Because they are all operated by the same company, they would all use the same UUID.
The beacon’s location is represented by four more bytes, which are separated into two sections: major and minor. In the example of a shopping mall, the large portion will reflect the mall’s actual store, while the minor half will indicate where the Bluetooth beacon is positioned within the store.
There is a system called Tx Power at the end. This value is used to calculate the distance between the beacon and the devices. It gives the power recorded at a distance of 1m from the beacon a reference value. This can be used as a reference to calculate other distances. AltBeacon is similar to iBeacon, but instead of defining the bytes as major and minor, it just gives the manufacturer four bytes to utilize in any way they wish.
What Sets Eddystone Apart From The Competition?
A manufacturer data field is not used by Eddystone beacons. Instead, they employ a service ID field. Services are the jobs that the gadget can perform, and each Bluetooth beacon service has its own unique identity.
These identifiers are used in their service ID field and are quite handy when choosing and sorting beacons depending on their function. There is a field where URLs can be saved (Uniform Resource Locators). There are also URL-representing frame kinds. A URL can be used instead of creating software that accepts the packet, translates the ID found to a place, and then performs some action. This indicates that the advertising package may be processed by a browser.
If Eddystone URL advertising packets are present, a general-purpose program can use Bluetooth advertisement packets and react to them by taking some action. It is not necessary to create special applications for this purpose. The beacon can also broadcast TLM data, which is a different type of data (telemetric data). This enables the beacon to broadcast information, including its battery status. When it comes to handling thousands and thousands of beacons at once, information like this is really important.
Beacons’ Applications
A Bluetooth beacon could be employed in a variety of ways. Smartwatches can be used in conjunction with beacons to deliver user updates. It would be more convenient to use a smartwatch instead of having to take out one’s phone whenever there is a notification. When it comes to designing beacons, developer boards might be used.
Developing beacons with developer boards like Arduino and Raspberry Pi is helpful since it allows designers to experiment with test scenarios. With commercial beacons, this is not an option. BLE beacons are expected to become highly popular in hospitals, restaurants, factories, and airports with growing time.
New indoor positioning features will be possible with BLE 5.1. This is because of the fascinating new power to assess position using Angle of Arrival (AoA). With AoA, it will be feasible to detect the location with centimeter-level accuracy, equivalent to UWB, while using energy-efficient and cost-effective BLE solutions.
Wrapping Up!
Finally, we can say that one of the most important RF protocols for physical asset tracking is BLE. Bluetooth beacon has low-power, versatile, and simple-to-implement technology that can be used to track the real-time status and location of essential assets and equipment in a variety of businesses.
Organizations can design smart buildings that use location to support multiple interactions, communications, and other features by incorporating BLE indoor positioning. BLE can be used to collect valuable location data and turn it into actionable organizational insights.
