Table of Contents
Introduction – Beacons
Beacons: A beacon is a small device comprising negligible amounts of data, often transmitting radio signals to close smartphones and tablets. The period between each movement sent and the strength of the signal is set to draw the desired coverage. The application cell phones are used to spy on transmitted signals, where they trigger an action on the phone every time they hear a relevant alert. The beacons can only reveal information to the phone but cannot read; therefore, they operate in one direction. Most data transmitted through beacons today does not change frequency as it is usually scrambled.
How far do the Beacons Go?
Although beacons can have a range of 70m without obstruction, walls made of bricks and metals can significantly reduce coverage. Thin walls with studs have fewer minor effects. Most beacon portals work with three distance ranges where the device does different things with each field. They include;
- Long Range Distances: These are specially designed so your device can do something when you are close enough to hear a beacon, i.e., after passing a retail store.
- Close Distances: These are designed to work when the device is in the same room as the beacon, i.e., walking into a retail store.
- Immediate Reach Distances: These are designed to work once the device is almost close to touching a beacon, i.e., touching the point of sale in a retail store.
Beacon Package
A beacon packet is the constant transmission of signals in a beacon network that announces the presence of the base station. It constantly signals any fault condition in a nominal ring network such as FDDI. A beacon packet allows network administrators to identify any faulty node in the system.
Beacon Frame
It is a category of management frame that detects a set of essential services. (BSS) designed for various 802.11 devices. A beacon frame comprises the network data required by a station before transmitting a frame. Beacon frames are use to match devices and announce the existence of devices on a WLAN connection.
The build of a beacon frame has other energetic fields, which include;
- Timestamp – This is the period when a structure is directly associate with the beacon portal. A timestamp synchronizes a device while it is on the WLAN connection. It also helps the device to modernize its local clocks.
- Beacon Intermission: This is the time interval between two repeat transmissions.
- Capacity Information – Comprises all the data related to the network’s capacity. The capacity information determines whether the network used is ad hoc or infrastructure based.
- SSID: Identifies the set of services for networks.
- Admitted rates: expresses the acceptable transmission rate for the channel.
- Frequency hopping limit set
- Direct Sequence Limit Set
- Contention-free limit set
- Traffic Indication Map: It is an electronic image use in IEEE 802.11. The access point periodically sends a traffic indication map where you must pay attention to at least one beacon during the entire beacon interval.
Types of Location Technology – Beacons
Most of the beacons apply Ble Beacon technology solutions to effectively communicate with other devices, which is effective as it retrieves the location of data. However, in addition to Bluetooth technology, there are other location technologies on the market. They include;
- Bluetooth Low Energy (Ble Beacon Technology Solutions)
- Most beacon location technology is based on Bluetooth low-energy technology. Compared with classic Bluetooth technology, BLE technology has a lower range, consumes less power, and transmits fewer data. Bluetooth Low Energy technology is specially design for sporadic transmissions of small amounts of data.
- B) Wi-Fi aware
- The Wi-Fi Alliance declared Wi-Fi Aware in July 2015. It is personally design for indoor locations. The power consumption rate of Wi-Fi Aware is lower compare to standard Wi-Fi.
- C) Combined technologies
- Rather than focus on single beacon technology, most providers combine multiple location technologies.
How do Beacons Work?
Any signal transmitted through a beacon has a unique identification number that enables the data center (Content Management System) to understand what content on the device needs to be sent. These applications in beacon technology are develop to suit the requirements of the business.
Beacons are responsible for sending all the content found in the CMS to mobile devices using beacons, allowing content to be change at any particular time. It is because the data is store in the cloud and not in the app. iBeacon, a protocol develop by Apple, is use to connect, making it likely to transmit small amounts of data. Also, Google has established Eddy stone, which is a substitute for iBeacon.
What do Data do Beacons send to Phones?
Beacons never transmit essential data. Alternatively, they pass short identifiers where the mobile app puts the sent data to good use and does something useful. For example, the mobile app detects the transmission of short numbers using a beacon, then converts the numbers into messages after connecting to the Internet. Then trigger a push note to the receiver. Without the Internet, beacons can also send push notes, but only those with short characters. In short, beacons are replica devices that advertise temporary identifiers.
Theoretically, beacons transmit a negligible amount of customizable data and less data that comprises a unique identifier and Instead, the token notifies the mobile app to move by listening and does something that provides additional information to process.
Conclusion
A beacon is a purposely visible device design to attract attention to a specific location and also typical example is a lighthouse, which draws attention to a fixed point that can be use to navigate around bump into port.
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