How to Use Beacon Technology

Beacon technology is still very new, and many of their best uses are likely still undiscovered. Luckily, this month’s first annual Location & Context World conference provided insight into how beacons can be used effectively, with a focus on how to combine them with other mobile technologies.

So how are BLE beacons useful? Today’s dominant location-based technology is GPS, which provides mobile devices with the information they need for turn-by-turn driving directions. However, this technology has serious limitations. For starters, GPS accuracy is not precise – it’s results fall within a 10-meter radius. GPS radio signals also require a lot of energy. Mobile radios communicating with a satellite make for slow, battery-draining apps. Modern smartphone devices have AGPS (assistive GPS) to help with both these issues. The phone has a map of satellites in the sky and a map of cell towers. Phones use the terrestrial cellular-network radio towers to make a location fix faster and more accurate.

Finally, GPS’s biggest limitation is that it cannot work indoors. Once the satellite connection is broken, the fix is gone and location cannot be detected. A terrestrial cellular network can continue to provide some location-sensing capability in these situations, but it’s not accurate through a building’s walls. Beacon technology is the answer.

Beacons have a short range. They can triangulate position in the same way that the phone uses cell towers with AGPS. These transmitters are posted at known points inside a building or stadium and they allow the device to get location fixes. This information can be used to create new user experiences such as turn-by-turn directions for indoor navigation from apps that read the beacon signals. The mapping and location tracking enables a lot of new mobile-app capabilities. The only downside is that the BLE or Bluetooth Smart standard is not in all smartphones. High-end devices produced in the last two years will have both Bluetooth and BLE, but older devices will not.

At the Location & Context World conference, WalMart Labs VP of Mobile & Digital Strategy, Wendy Bergh, shared information about how beacon technology is being deployed in light fixtures in WalMart stores. Beacons allow the company to create smartphone apps that work in-store. The WalMart app can track the contents and total of your basket. There also is a “Search My Store” feature to find the specific aisle for any given product and then guide you to it. The app incorporates aggressive data filters that interactively notify app users of sale prices on nearby items that might interest them. It even helps with payment at the self-checkout registers.

A second type of beacon technology adds on “nearable” proximity-sensing tags like the stickers made by Estimote. These portable beacons have a Smart Bluetooth radio (BLE) as well as an accelerometer and a temperature sensor. They are battery powered for up to one year of continuous use.

An application being tested by the Guggenheim Museum uses this type of beacon on audio tours of the museum so that a visitor does not have to fiddle with navigation buttons or follow a specific mapped order for the tour. The audio-tour device will know which pieces in the collection are close when the user presses play and the correct audio file will be selected automatically. The museum can also track foot traffic inside the museum to gather data that can help curators improve the buildings infrastructure and map future exhibits.

Using mobile tags and fixed beacons together, apps can pin down indoor location accurately, with a radius of one foot rather than the 10-meter radius of GPS. These technologies can also detect height.

A presentation at the L&C conference from CSR also described the convergence of BLE beacons and tags with Wi-Fi technology, cell-tower terrestrial networks and GPS to create indoor mapping with a high level of precision. Using the SirFusion library, devices can conserve battery power with a calculated switch from indoor to outdoor radios, as needed.

Beacon technologies will inspire new definitions of context and will further the development of the Internet of Things. Imagine how the living room LED lights might switch on when you walk into the room and shine in your favorite color with the dimming level you like best without your ever having to program that information or take out a phone or tablet.

As the presentations at Location & Context showed, beacons are slowly spreading mobile apps into new locations, including major retail stores like WalMart. As the technology continues to mature, so too will its capabilities.

For example, the team at BlooLoc is creating beacons without batteries that can use energy from ambient light to power the beacon radios. At Spreo, they are creating end-to-end solutions for venues who want to map their facility, create a new beacon network and finish with a white label app – all built for a fee. Train stations, hospitals and stadiums have all used the Spreo model to get the job done without tying up their own IT Staff.

Another term from the conference is Locationomics, a word to describe the economic impact of location data. The location of people, places, assets and events can be used by businesses to save time and money, to operate more efficiently, to better serve existing and future customers and to identify new product and service opportunities.

However, there is a delicate balance between privacy and location sharing that must be respected. The confidentiality implications of sharing location data are not well understood. To get the privacy policy right, it is best to go forward with help from an experienced mobile technology partner. If you need help in this area, Applico’s engineering team has lots of experience working with beacons and other location-based technologies.

Filed under: Product Engineering | Topics: beacon, iBeacon, location tracking