Wireless communication dominates our everyday lives: We make phone calls with our cell phones, surf the Internet wirelessly via WLAN, and pair our cell phones with the hands-free system in our cars. In these applications, the focus is on data rate and range—a mobile cell needs to cover as large an area as possible and the WLAN needs to provide all the maximum Internet speed it can in every nook and cranny of the home.
The major disadvantage of this approach is the high energy consumption, which means that either a high-capacity battery or a mains connection is required. For some years now, Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE), also known as Bluetooth Smart, has been a wireless technology that takes a completely different approach: The focus is not on maximum data rate or range, but on the lowest possible energy consumption.
BTLE technology enables amazing options for navigating in buildings. GPS navigation only works when there is visual contact with the GPS satellites which means that it cannot be used inside buildings, tunnels or underground. By positioning BTLE beacons strategically, cell phones, for example, can determine their position within a building based on the signal strength and use it to guide the user through the building.
This is an interesting option for large public facilities such as airports, train stations or exhibition halls. Conventional beacons work in relatively small buildings, but fail in large and complex installations. If, for example, a beacon fails and this goes unnoticed, positioning becomes inaccurate or even impossible. The effort involved in monitoring, inventory and localization goes off the charts if the entire installation is to function reliably.
New functions or updates for troubleshooting require connecting manually to each individual beacon and installing new software—if this is even possible. Areus beacons offer significant added value in this respect, as they can be monitored remotely—these are known as “managed beacons”. Information and data, such as battery status, hardware and firmware version, transmission power, can be monitored from the host computer.
In addition, functions can be upgraded by wirelessly uploading software updates to the beacons from the host computer—these are known as Over The Air (OTA) updates. It’s only these management capabilities that enable the use of BTLE beacons in professional applications in everyday demanding conditions.
BTLE technology enables amazing options for navigating in buildings. GPS navigation only works when there is visual contact with the GPS satellites which means that it cannot be used inside buildings, tunnels or underground. By positioning BTLE beacons strategically, cell phones, for example, can determine their position within a building based on the signal strength and use it to guide the user through the building.
This is an interesting option for large public facilities such as airports, train stations or exhibition halls. Conventional beacons work in relatively small buildings, but fail in large and complex installations. If, for example, a beacon fails and this goes unnoticed, positioning becomes inaccurate or even impossible. The effort involved in monitoring, inventory and localization goes off the charts if the entire installation is to function reliably.
New functions or updates for troubleshooting require connecting manually to each individual beacon and installing new software—if this is even possible. Areus beacons offer significant added value in this respect, as they can be monitored remotely—these are known as “managed beacons”. Information and data, such as battery status, hardware and firmware version, transmission power, can be monitored from the host computer.
In addition, functions can be upgraded by wirelessly uploading software updates to the beacons from the host computer—these are known as Over The Air (OTA) updates. It’s only these management capabilities that enable the use of BTLE beacons in professional applications in everyday demanding conditions.
Everyone is familiar with this situation: In some areas of the home, the WLAN signal strength is better than in others. Even a small change in the room can have a dramatic effect on the signal quality.
To be economical with the valuable energy from the battery, BTLE technology uses significantly lower radio power than WLAN, for example, which makes it more sensitive to radio reflections, metal parts or human bodies in the radio range. As a result, the link between a beacon and the Internet router may be interrupted momentarily.
To increase the availability of the overall installation, our beacons establish connections not only to the Internet router, but also to all “neighboring beacons” within radio range. This creates a virtual network of beacons, known as a mesh, and ensures that even if several beacons fail, the remaining devices can still be reached from the host computer.
Consequently, even in adverse radio conditions, no expensive special hardware is required; instead, a highly available system can be set up with the low-cost Areus beacons.
Find more information about our SmartBeacons here.
Areus GmbH
Einsteinstraße 13
71083 Herrenberg
Germany
We have been officially certified to DIN EN ISO 9001:2015 since July 2017.
The areas of application include engineering services for automotive electronics and media technology and the production of electrical and electronic components.
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