What Are Beacons?

What are beacons?

Beacons are, essentially, small digital lighthouses. They use the bluetooth low energy standard, so they can last years on a very small battery. They can transmit a little more information than just proximity, such as temperature and motion, but for the most part they are very simple, and their utility lies in the real world context they can provide to platforms on smart devices.

Are beacons easy to install?

Beacons are very easy to install. They run on a tiny battery, so they are independent of any electrical system. They are also wireless, and interact directly with smart devices, so there is no need to hook them up to wireless internet systems.

Will beacons interfere with other devices?

Beacons use a particular standard of Bluetooth, a very mainstream communications standard that has been tested and used extensively worldwide. Without going into too much technical detail, let us tell you that you could turn a beacon signal up to the maximum, hold it against another device, for example a Bluetooth headset you are using for a phone call, and experience absolutely no interference. We’ve tried. If you want, call us and we’ll do it again while we talk to you. Our beacons technology uses the same adaptive frequency hopping scheme as Bluetooth Classic when devices are connected. Adaptive frequency hopping minimizes interference from other technologies in the 2.4-GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band shared by the multitude of wireless devices operating in this spectrum.