What do I need to know and what do I need to configure?
BLE beacons are small devices that emit BLE signals and that help us perform indoor positioning in some situations. This article answers the most common questions about beacons.
Do I need beacons? #
In general, the answer is no. It depends on whether your use case is tracking or wayfinding, and also on whether you want to use our beacon-based or beacon-free flavor. Please check the details here.
How many beacons do I need? #
In case you decide to install beacons, you will need:
- Open spaces: around 1 beacon per 300-500 square meters (20×20 meters)
- Corridors: around 1 beacon for each 20 meters
This is usually a 10% of the beacons required by competitors.
BLE beacons vs BLE-enabled Access Points #
If you go for the “beacon-based” solution, you have 3 options:
- Beacon deployment: You may deploy BLE beacons following the recommended density (see previous section). Here’s a list of recommended beacons.
- BLE emitting Access Points. If the venue has modern WiFi Access Points featuring BLE emission (Cisco, Aruba…), these signals can be used by Situm to provide high accuracy. Depending on the density of access points, it will even be possible that no additional beacons are required.
- Mixed. A complement to the previous option (BLE emitting Access Points) is to deploy a few beacons in the areas that area not covered by the Access Points.
Beacons uuids #
- What is it? An identifier that can be shared among many beacons. A common practice is to identify all your beacons with the same UUID, so they are easy to find/manage
- What UUIDs does Situm detect by default? By default, Situm Mapping Tool and Situm SDK only detect beacons configured with Situm’s UUID 73697475-6D73-6974-756D-736974756D15 and Kontakt’s UUID f7826da6-4fa2-4e98-8024-bc5b71e0893e.
- Can I use other beacons? If you want to use your own beacons, add a custom field TO YOUR BUILDING with a key called beacons_uuids (link) and also add the list of beacon UUIDs as a value for this key. More info in the next section.
| Beacon filter | Value |
|---|---|
| Key | beacons_uuids |
| Value | 059e0694-60d0-4c48-a6cd-ef4ee2987a93 Multiple beacon filter (separated it by commas): 4afa9e5b-1445-4525-a5e2-3fa25ba98656,b05ab4c0-5e3e-4007-ade1-e6593 |
Custom fields building level #
Go to the left sidebar and click on Buildings.
Select the edit building button
, located next to the Cartography title on the top menu:
Click on Other Fields > Add and the key and value options will appear to insert the custom fields:
How to distribute beacons #
As a general rule, you should distribute your beacons so that you:
- Cover as much space possible while respecting at least the minimum number of beacons recommended (see below some of the tips).
- All areas are covered at least by the signal of 2 or 3 beacons.
- The imaginary perimeter formed by the outer beacons of each floorplan encloses all the areas that you want to cover.
Beacons coverage map #
- Go to the Dashboard configuration panel
- Select in the “Positioning Model” the floor of the building that you want to check.
- Click on “Visualize model”
- You will be able to see if all the areas of interest are covered.