Bluetooth beacons are primarily used to allow other Bluetooth devices such as smartphones or Bluetooth-WiFi gateways to determine their location and associated sensor information. In terms of working distances, beacons fit between NFC and GPS and provide a solution to the problem of GPS not working indoors. Bluetooth beacons also use much lower receiving device battery power than GPS. Some beacons have sensors that can provide extra information such as temperature, movement, light level, humidity, magnetic detection, barometric pressure and generic switch on/off detection.
Beacons allow apps to do innovative and seemingly clever things based on location. For example, they can be used in retail to provide more timely information or in visitor spaces to increase participation. Apps that better use the external context can increase engagement and, in turn, usefulness. Increased engagement and usefulness can in some situations be used for commercial gain.
In IoT scenarios, beacons can provide remote proximity detection (of people and things) and sensor data to web servers, IoT platforms and the cloud.
Technically, beacons use Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) to repeatedly transmit a unique id or web address without having to pair devices as was the case with previous versions of Bluetooth. The range is typically 50m but can reach up to 100m outdoors for some beacons. We also stock some specialist beacons that can reach up to 4000m. The range is significantly less indoors when there are walls.
Physically, beacons are small computers typically packaged in a small plastic box, usually powered by one or more coin batteries. Some models can be powered by USB or packaged as a USB dongle.
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