10 Truths About ibeacon

to the outside

April Brothers is the manufacturer of domestic ibeacon. In the last six months of close contact with customers found that although the domestic ibeacon technology is very hot, but there are still many misunderstandings, so we would like to clarify some of the truth about ibeacon:

1. How does ibeacon push the information to the outside?

This is the most common misconception about ibeacon. Ibeacon is not a pseudo base station, ibeacon will not push custom information. Information push is the custom function in mobile phone application, if the customer installs your application, you already have the ability to push the information. Ibeacon is simply the place where the push behavior corresponds to the beacon. But it feels like it's getting a message to the user, and if you're not using it, ibeacon is almost useless to you.

2. Does Apple have an agreement on the Information transmission section?

Everyone is always thinking, beacon if the sensor network should be more good. The reality is now, this is only a legend, has not seen the actual examples, also did not see the plan. Now ibeacon are based on the beacon used as a letter punctuation, ibeacon nodes are not interconnected. Some domestic manufacturers say the network is also ibeacon base station, terminal (mobile) applications and cloud (server) services together collectively known as the network.

3. Does it support the transfer of small amounts of customized data?

The ibeacon protocol is not used to transfer custom data. If the change of protocol is not a standard protocol, it will also lose the basic support of iOS for IBEACON nodes. However, a node is not excluded from a common Bluetooth and ibeacon method.

4. Why did I get the beacon ranging inaccurate?

Ibeacon is a 2.4G RF technology based on BLE (low power consumption Bluetooth technology), which calculates the distance based on the model of RF field strength attenuation with distance. Because the RF signal transmission itself by the environmental interference is very unstable, so based on the principle of ranging is not accurate. Apple also put the result in a probability range, divided into Immediate,near,far is also. Basically, the results of our observations, within 3 meters of accuracy, 3 meters after the basic nonsense.

5. Can you use ibeacon to achieve accurate indoor positioning?

Ibeacon direct ranging is not allowed, but if the room has more than beacons and reasonable topology, it can achieve a better indoor positioning effect. Signal instability can be corrected by time smoothing, or multiple beacon, but these algorithms are not easy. To achieve high positioning accuracy, rapid response needs to be considerable accumulation. Now there is no such a good source code available for reference.

According to our test results, with an average of 20 square meters of 1 beacon density, positioning accuracy is maintained at the decimeter level is no problem, and beacon hardware and construction costs are quite low. In many scenarios, compared with the existing indoor navigation technology advantages of the obvious.

6. Will there be any serious impact on the simultaneous work of multiple ibeacon base stations?

Can a multiple ibeacon base station of a company or company in a commercial unit produce a situation similar to that of a WiFi hotspot? Theoretically it can be sure that these base stations will interfere with each other, but Bluetooth is a multi-channel broadcast (3 broadcast channels), and the actual use of beacon transmission cycle space is small (0.04 or less), so the interference is not very serious. We once opened 200 beacon in a purse and could detect any effects that were not observed.

Is 7.Android compatible?

Apple's support for ibeacon is strong. Android4.3 also added support later, there are many open source SDK can be used directly. NFC, formerly popular with Android platforms, is largely out of fashion because of the short range of functions. It seems that ibeacon has a tendency to replace it.

8. Is the Bluetooth base station convenient to upgrade?

As the ibeacon protocol is still in the process of development, the base station now deployed may not include future features, now many base stations can not disassemble the node, the use of Intelligent Terminal Direct brush ROM upgrade.

9. Will the ibeacon node I deploy be used by other businesses?

The answer is yes!. Because the IBEACON protocol is open and easy to forge, the nodes you deploy can be used by the competing enterprise entirely. Even forge a beacon that is exactly the same as your ID. Preventing the use of rubbing is a subject.

The equipment chamber, including us, offers a solution, but it can still be used by now. There is still time to solve the problem because it is not yet deployed on a large scale.

What is the power consumption of 10.iBeacon? Why some products in the market say some half a year, some can use 4 years?

Now the sale of the scheme in addition to estimote more special, basically are used TI2540 or 2541 program. Beacon as a Bluetooth base station launch time is particularly short only about 4mS.

Beacon launch cycle can be adjusted, such as Apple Regulation 100mS launch once, that is, 100mS only launch 4ms, our product's default launch cycle is 900mS. Transmit power is also adjustable, for example 2540 offers 0DBMW, +4dbm, -6dbm, -23dbm four kinds of transmit power. Different use of the scene can be based on the actual need to adjust the launch cycle, launch frequency, power consumption will also be different, the use of the product will appear six months to 4 years such a large span.