Beacons

Use Bluetooth to make environments more informative, engaging and safer

Beacons are a hugely popular implementation of Bluetooth technology. They have numerous use cases from proactive retail engagement offering customers real time contextual experiences, to indoor asset tracking and personal location devices. There are a variety of beaconing formats, but all use Bluetooth Low Energy to make environments more informationally rich, engaging and safer.

Today beacons are in use in retail stores, airports and hospitals and many more places. They look set for adoption all around us in work, leisure and infrastructure as their uses are multiple and varied.

Photo: Estimote

Key application requirements

Bluetooth 5 Advertising Extensions | Cost-effective | Best-in-class energy efficiency | Small WLCSP package

Location beacons | Nearables

sitting small bus green table woman room standing computer man train blue

Location beacons

Location beacons help to provide positioning information in indoor situations where GPS positioning cannot perform as it does outdoors. Bluetooth Low Energy signal strength measurements (RSSI) are monitored and when a large number of beacons are deployed analytics can be performed on the smartphone for an individual to gauge their location, or alternatively with back end systems when location tracking is being used to monitor assets and indivduals in a building.

Suitable device

nRF52832 SoC bluetooth le/bluetooth low energy bt module — nRF52832

nRF52810 SoC bluetooth le/bluetooth low energy bt module — nRF52810

Nearables

Nearables are beacons that can interact with other devices in their locality based upon proximity sensing. They can be used to create smart environments at home and in industry and commerce. They allow for a range of pre-determined rules to be run based on various scenarios to effect desired behaviour in local devices.