Beacons - Active RFID - Areff Systems AB

Beacons?

Beacons are small electronic transmitters, like lighthouses only have one single task here in the world – to constantly send out a signal. Whether someone is listening or not, they send out the same simple message over and over again.

Despite the fact that the technology is not new, it all builds mostly on simple Bluetooth technology, the beacons have repeatedly topped lists of future technological trends.

A classic example is a bus station. A beacon is placed at the station and communicates via Bluetooth to all nearby devices that list the station right there. So when you arrive at the station, your phone can tell you what the station is called, what buses are going from there and how long it will be until the next bus arrives.
Everything without touching a single button.

As mentioned above, technology is not as new as you can imagine. As early as 2013, Apple released its iBeacon technology, and since then more and more companies have adapted to the trend. Someone who was early was the American shopping mall Macys. By placing beacons in the store, Macys could offer discounts and deals directly to their customers’ phones. This made the technology highly attractive, seeing that it was more likely that customers interacted with this technology than with traditional ads in the store.

The technology is also attractive as many customers are already reachable. To reach someone via the beacons, the person must have switched on Bluetooth on his phone and have an app on the phone that can use the beacon signal and allowed to send notifications. In the retail world, you simply allow beacons to replace coupons. Direct to the phone instead of paper cupons.

Advanced Beacon system for Industry- och Security solutions

HID® BLE BEACONS AND GATEWAYS BEEKs ™ Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) Beacons are the most advanced beacons available in the industry. The system is both easy to install and integrate.

These beacons are fully compatible with both Apple iBeacon and Google Eddystone, which allows them to be used for all types of standard applications for location-based information services that support both platforms simultaneously. In addition, BEEKs can be used to detect and in real time measure sensor data for motion, temperature, light, vibration and magnetic field.

Combined with HID Globals end-to-end IoT ecosystem (Internet of Things), which includes BluFi ™ BLE for Wi-Fi gateway and Bluzone ™ services, BEEKs can be managed centrally through the cloud. The implementation of the network is incredibly easy. All you need to do is power one or more Wi-Fi gateways, so the system is running. By simply placing the various Wi-Fi gateways on a drawing of the premises through the application in Bluezone, each beacons can generate standard GPS coordinates that can be directly interpreted by all standard geometric data applications. The Bluzone cloud allows the user to aggregate and, in an educational way, present large amounts of sensor data in order to get an overview and basis for making the right decision for the supervised process or event. In addition, HID Global Location Services, which is activated by Bluvision, is an effective Real-time locating system (RTLS) platform that utilizes BEEK’s beacons to effectively locate assets in a warehouse, campus, hospital or in a production hall.

Bluzone is an application that can be used instantly “out-of-the-box” and enables scalable beacon implementation, even at global level. The combination of sensor beacons, BluFi ™ and the Bluzone platform enables you to manage and monitor large networks of BEEK’s beacons. Bluzone is not just a complete application, but data and features are also available through the API, making it very easy to integrate into third-party solutions or to develop a customized user interface.

-Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth Low Energy – BLE) 4.1 compatible
-iBeacon (Apple), Eddystone (Google) and sBeacon (Bluvision) protocol are supported simultaneously
-Beacons with sensors (some models)
-Up to 5 years of battery life
-Location accuracy down to 1 meter

Bluvision

Bluvision is a rapidly growing company within wireless industry sensors (IIoT). The company was acquired by Assa Abloy in 2016. The Bluvision product program mainly consists of wireless sensors (BLE Beacons) to monitor equipment. The aim is to minimize industrial disturbances. The sensors are glued to the equipment and measure vibration, temperature, magnetic field and light. The measurement results are transferred to a cloud service that analyzes the results and automatically reports when symptoms of breakdowns are detected.

By utilizing modern technology, the industry now has the opportunity to continuously monitor large amounts of production equipment at very low costs.

Areff is now a certified partner for Bluvision, which is part of HID Global for Bluvision Location-based solutions – Real-Time Location System (RTLS) solutions and Zone-based RTLS [PLS] solutions.

“This gives us the opportunity to work seriously with solutions for INDUSTRY 4.0” – says Fredrik Martinsson CTO at Areff Systems AB.

The system’s HW is fully compatible with both Apple iBeacon and Google Eddystone. The Bluzone software makes it possible to get started right away, and the system is incredibly flexible and easy to install. All of this at a significantly lower cost than before has been standard for this type of system.