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Robert, I'm fairly certain that is not possible with any BLE system. Main obstacle is that a slave device, such as a beacon, can only be connected to a single m

by bravo22 12y ago

Robert, I'm fairly certain that is not possible with any BLE system. Main obstacle is that a slave device, such as a beacon, can only be connected to a single master at a time to do things like stock look up or other things you've listed. So while customer A is connected, customer B can not connect. There is also security issue of customer A connecting and then leaving the connection open, denying access to customer B. The way beacons work is turn the problem around. Your phone looks at the beacons that are near it, and make an educated guess as to it's location based on relative signal strengths and then go to a web app to fetch the data. Beacons don't get a "ping" from the customer. They are, just like their name suggests, beacons. They send a ping out with their id for whoever wants to listen. You can use passive BLE devices to listen for customer's BLE device, but only if those devices are in advertising mode which you'd have to put them into by an app running in the foreground. Usually stores use WiFi requests to track customers.

roberthahn 12y ago
Thank you, bravo22. I appreciate the clarification - I obviously misunderstood the capabilities iBeacons offered. Kind of sad though, I think there's a huge opportunity in providing hyperlocal capabilities the way I described. So let me check my understanding: what I'm seeing is that there are only two scenarios that make iBeacons useful: * the mobile app has to have all possible beacon id's hard coded (or configurable by the user) and mapped to desired responses. The tradeoff is that any growth in the iBeacon network necessarily requires an app update. * the mobile app has to function like a dumb terminal, receive a ping, then query a separate server asking what's special about that ping. This avoids updating the app, but adds a whole new point of failure to the system. Thanks again for your response. very helpful.
- bravo22 12y ago
  You are correct. Think of iBeacons as kinda of like GPS. They feed you data, not the other way around. You can certainly have more advanced capabilities w/ BLE -- similar to what you suggested -- but you'd have the single master problem. To comment on your understanding: The app doesn't need them hardcoded, it can query a server and say: here are the beacons I see, where am I? Alternatively you can include location information in the data broadcast by the beacon. So one of them can say I'm at the end of isle 1, the other says I'm at the start of isle 1, and yet another says I'm at the end of isle 2. You can figure out your approximate position by their relative signal strengths. They can even have broadcast the exact GPS coordinates of where they are located (hardcoded in them of course) which if I recall correctly Apple can use to update their location service to give you very accurate positioning. Bear in mind though that beacon data, unless encrypted, is public but even if encrypted it can be duplicated so someone can mess with you by creating a duplicate tag and placing it nearby.
barrymueller 12y ago
http://www.dedeceblog.com/2014/06/13/knoll-pt-4-43-neocon-2014/ http://www.dedeceblog.com/2014/06/13/knoll-pt-4-43-neocon-20... According to my understanding this allows beacons to analyze patterns. How could that be?
- bravo22 12y ago
  Not sure where in the article specifically you are referring to. What I saw: "The software uses wireless beacon-driven technology that operates in tandem with smartphones based on a user’s micro-location to exchange data and information." "To help guide people through the r/evolution workplace showroom, Knoll employed Bounce by Knoll, a brand new mobile app that will push information to users as they encounter Bluetooth beacons positioned throughout the showroom." suggests that beacon broadcast an id, or position and the app uses that info to fetch data from the cloud relevant to the user's position, which is roughly triangulated from relative signal strength of each beacon. They can analyze user's movement through the cloud.

by bravo22 12y ago

roberthahn 12y ago

Thank you, bravo22. I appreciate the clarification - I obviously misunderstood the capabilities iBeacons offered. Kind of sad though, I think there's a huge opportunity in providing hyperlocal capabilities the way I described. So let me check my understanding: what I'm seeing is that there are only two scenarios that make iBeacons useful: * the mobile app has to have all possible beacon id's hard coded (or configurable by the user) and mapped to desired responses. The tradeoff is that any growth in the iBeacon network necessarily requires an app update. * the mobile app has to function like a dumb terminal, receive a ping, then query a separate server asking what's special about that ping. This avoids updating the app, but adds a whole new point of failure to the system. Thanks again for your response. very helpful.

bravo22 12y ago
You are correct. Think of iBeacons as kinda of like GPS. They feed you data, not the other way around. You can certainly have more advanced capabilities w/ BLE -- similar to what you suggested -- but you'd have the single master problem. To comment on your understanding: The app doesn't need them hardcoded, it can query a server and say: here are the beacons I see, where am I? Alternatively you can include location information in the data broadcast by the beacon. So one of them can say I'm at the end of isle 1, the other says I'm at the start of isle 1, and yet another says I'm at the end of isle 2. You can figure out your approximate position by their relative signal strengths. They can even have broadcast the exact GPS coordinates of where they are located (hardcoded in them of course) which if I recall correctly Apple can use to update their location service to give you very accurate positioning. Bear in mind though that beacon data, unless encrypted, is public but even if encrypted it can be duplicated so someone can mess with you by creating a duplicate tag and placing it nearby.

barrymueller 12y ago

http://www.dedeceblog.com/2014/06/13/knoll-pt-4-43-neocon-2014/ http://www.dedeceblog.com/2014/06/13/knoll-pt-4-43-neocon-20... According to my understanding this allows beacons to analyze patterns. How could that be?

bravo22 12y ago
Not sure where in the article specifically you are referring to. What I saw: "The software uses wireless beacon-driven technology that operates in tandem with smartphones based on a user’s micro-location to exchange data and information." "To help guide people through the r/evolution workplace showroom, Knoll employed Bounce by Knoll, a brand new mobile app that will push information to users as they encounter Bluetooth beacons positioned throughout the showroom." suggests that beacon broadcast an id, or position and the app uses that info to fetch data from the cloud relevant to the user's position, which is roughly triangulated from relative signal strength of each beacon. They can analyze user's movement through the cloud.