Ibeacon Apps Must Not Be Unique

Stores or the Stand-Alone shops that caters to people residing near where it is located can really get smarter with beacons. But ibeacons could not work by itself, it is always accompanied by a customized app. If you could imagine a scenario wherein there are hundreds of shops operating in one location and each one of these shops has implemented ibeacons with the basic objective of attracting more customers. This would mean the consumers has to download all the customized apps from each one of the shops. Having to install all of the apps is not a good idea at all, and seriously will just eat up the memory of the smartphone and this could be disastrous. This scenario will just render the effort of implementing ibeacons useless not to mention the tons of notification that consumers will receive. It has been proven that consumers usually uninstall apps that sends irrelevant notifications.

But there is a number of solutions to this problem. The best solution that I can think of is to have a service provider similar to free blog hosting site blogger.com which provides a service that enable bloggers to start blogging in an instant.I really like the idea of blogger.com because I don't have to be very tech savvy to create  a nice blog. All I have to do is register, think of a good blog title, choose the template, create the article, and the next day, I am able to track how many visitors I had the previous day, how did they got into my blog and which article they were able to read, which country they came from and so many more.

Now in the case of the service provider that can host the ibeacon app, the shop owner could just register and be able to do the following:

1. Integrate the app with their back-end system like SAP HANA, online payment system, or any other software.
2. Enable shop owners customize their Ibeacon security implementations
3. Create Loyalty/Rewards/Membership Cards
4. Create Discount Coupons
5. Other Promotional Gimmicks
6. The notifications should be keyword based just like what I mention in my previous article(My Mobile Application Idea using Ibeacons)

The service provider may also provide other tools like data analytics, tracking tools, ibeacon management apps, ibeacon calibration tools, etc.

This solution can be later on integrated into the Operating System so that every consumers need not worry about doing anything. It could be very convenient to have all their loyalty cards kept in one place and it will also be cool if all the purchases of the consumer can be integrated into their personal financial software to enable them to track their expenses.

Top 5 Benefits for Students can get from Ibeacons

Students are like employed people busy building up their skills, preparing for an exam, collaborate with colleagues to work on a group project, or had to stay on the lab to help Professor X finish his latest bionic brain designs. They have to work hard in order to pass their subjects. With their busy lifestyle, there are still so many grunt works that needs their attention and there may be social events and promos that they might miss. These could be very important for every students to bond with friends and cement connections. Thank God, Ibeacon technology is here to make sure every important events at school is not missed. I think these are the following top 5 benefits for students can get from ibeacons:

1. Receiving notifications and reminders using location specific devices coupled with visually appealing apps can truly make schools interactive and will captivate the students' fascination which will increase the students' desire to learn.

2. Getting every students' preference can help School Administrators send relevant notifications. It can also help Guidance Councilors formulate better career guidance program for every students.

3. In the classrooms, attendance can be taken automatically as the student enters the classroom, students can request the teacher's assistance while doing some experiments, resulting in a much better teacher-student relationship.

4. As mentioned above, with the help of ibeacons, important social, organizational, and/or sporting events can never be missed by the students because they could receive relevant reminders and notifications related to such events.

5. A truly interactive game that can help students learn with the help of ibeacons can also be developed. The interactive game could be related to improving and honing the students' social skills, or help them develop interest in solving some of Math's unsolved problems.

Another Effective Guide on How to Maximize the Use of Ibeacons

When trouble comes, there could be something wrong with what you're doing this is especially true for newbies. Ibeacons do sometimes have trouble but there will be some solutions to every unique problems encountered. Sometimes electronic devices fail to operate on certain conditions so these tips can be a good guide to ensure that ibeacons will not fail.

Q: My battery is 180mAH and I expect it to last 15 days but it wont even last for 1 day, what's the problem?

There are a number of reasons why this happens, try these

1. Batteries of this size is very vulnerable to overcharging and frequent full discharging so avoid overcharging and full discharging the battery
2. If it does not last for 1 day, see my article A Closer Look at How Ibeacons Consume Power. If you have followed the configuration in this article Configuring HM-10 to Support Over-the-Air(OTA) Update, then you should adjust the rated power transmission power to -23dB by invoking AT+POWE0
3. If the problem still exists, try adjusting the advertising frequency to 1228mSeconds by invoking AT+ADVI9
4. Make sure that it sleeps by invoking AT+SLEEP
5. Enable the Ibeacon's security features AT+TYPE2 and AT+PASS000000("000000" is the default. You may change it to your preferred passkey

This is another informative tip on how to effectively use your ibeacons.

A Closer Look at How Ibeacons Consume Power

A lot of people think that if its a low energy device would automatically mean the device will consume less energy and therefore, battery life will be longer. This is partially true but grossly incomplete so one can't just conclude from only one set of data. Several factors could affect the device power consumption other than its Low Energy Rating, so this is my main goal to clarify certain concerns about battery life of the ibeacon.

There are a number of factors that affect the battery life, and these are the chip itself, its firmware, the pcb design, error in the device's configuration, environmental temperature, the housing, and so on and so forth. First lets have a look at an ideal condition where the environment is perfect and predictable so that we can easily create formula at how the device can consume power. In a perfect environment we can easily say that Battery Life(in Days) =  Transmission Rate(mSeconds) * Rated Transmission Count where Rated Transmission Count = Battery Rating(in mAH) / Current Draw per Transmission where Current Draw per Transmission = Power Consumption per Transmission(in dBm converted into µWatts) / Voltage.

Sample Computation:
1) Battery Rating = 260mAH
2) Device Rated Transmission Power = -23dBm = 3.33µW(AT+POWE3)
3) Transmission Rate = 564mseconds(AT+ADVI5)
3) Voltage Applied to the iBeacon = 3.3V

Current Draw per Transmission = 3.33 µW / 3.3V = 0.1 µA (assuming that 3.3v is constant)
Rated Transmission Count = 260 mAH / 0.1 µA = 2600000
Battery Life = 564mseconds * 2600000 / 86400 = 16.97 days

The ibeacon consumes 0.18mA during sleep mode, to compute the battery life:
Total Transmission Current Draw Per Hour = 0.1 µA * 564mseconds * 3600 = 0.203mA
Using the formula from digikey:
Net Battery Life = (((260 mAH / (0.18 mA+0.203mA)) * 0.7)/24 = 13.86 days(estimate only)

Please note that Battery Rating in mAH is not actually the amount of electrical energy stored by the battery, it is the maximum current that can be drawn from the battery continuously in one hour. So we will just assume that the battery has already been fully discharged after an hour of giving off 260mA.

These formulae is based on perfect conditions, but because of some other factors that I enumerated above, these result could vary by as much as 50%(with the exception of the error in the device's configuration that could result up to 1000%)when all other factors are considered in the calculation.

I could not site a reputable link that there was indeed a scientific study to confirm my observation, it was based solely on my actual experience with electronic devices that I have worked on the past 5 years.

Configuring the Ibeacon to Detect other BLE(Bluetooth 4.0) Devices with Raspberry Pi and Python

The Ibeacon from Ziruz Technologies is not just simply an Ibeacon, it can also be configured to detect other Bluetooth Low Energy(BLE) devices. And more recently, one AT command has been added to make the Ibeacon detect other Ibeacons, but the HM10 module will need a firmware upgrade so that the new command will be available for use.

We can use the previous setup we used in my previous article(Configuring Ibeacons using Raspberry Pi B+ and Python) so that all we need to do is create a python program. And here is the python program I used to scan other BLE devices:

import serial
import time
port = serial.Serial("/dev/ttyAMA0", baudrate=9600, timeout=3.0)
port.write("AT+RENEW")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
port.write("AT+RESET")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
port.write("AT+ROLE1")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
port.write("AT+IMME1")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
port.write("AT+SHOW1")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
while True:
    port.write("AT+DISC")
    rcv = port.readline() 
    print rcv
    rcv = ""
    time.sleep(10)

The AT+DISC will scan all BLE devices and will just return the MAC address, the newest firmware version has the command AT+DISI? and this command will return the UUID, RSSI, Major, Minor, Measured Power and the MAC Address. The command AT+DISI? is available with firmware version V539, to check the version of the firmware use AT+VERS?

If your current Ibeacon does not support the latest version, you can update the firmware by following this procedure.

Configuring Ibeacons using Raspberry Pi B+ and Python

CP2104 Module is the perfect way not only to configure the ibeacons by connecting it to the usb port as described in my previous post (How to connect Ibeacon V2.0 to a PC with CP2104 USB 2.0 to TTL Converter) but can also be used to check the battery charge level of the ibeacon's battery as well by checking the brightness of the led on the module while the ibeacon is connected. But I have run out of stock and these modules are not readily available, so once they're gone, they're gone. But I have learned that the raspberry pi which is a small pc and can be used like an arduino can be an excellent substitute. Raspberry is readily available so configuring the ibeacon should not be a problem.

Here's how to use the raspberry to configure the Ibeacon:
1. The Connection. Connect the ibeacon module(HM10) to the UART/Serial port of the raspberry pi, see illustration below:

2. Raspberry Pi Set-up. The raspberry pi will still need to be set up because by default, the uart port serves as another gateway for controlling the computer remotely, so all bootup sequences and messages are being transmitted on the port, but all we need is to configure the  uart port to configure the ibeacon so we will need to eliminate this unwanted data. Here is how to do it:

1. Modify the file /boot/cmdline.txt by removing console keyword related to the serial port. Typically the file looks like this: "
   dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 kgdboc=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 ....". Just remove the part in bold letters.
   
2. The next step is to modify the file /etc/inittab by commenting the line "
   T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyAMA0 115200 vt100". You could just add "#" at the beginning of the line.
   
   Restart the raspberry pi
   

Further reading:  RPi Serial Connection

3. The Python Code.  And finally we are ready to configure the ibeacon. I used the following python code to achieve this:

import serial

port = serial.Serial("/dev/ttyAMA0", baudrate=9600, timeout=3.0)

while True:
    port.write("AT+RENEW")
    rcv = port.readline() 
    print rcv
    rcv = ""
    port.write("AT+RESET")
    rcv = port.readline() 
    print rcv
    rcv = ""
    ....

 Just follow the rest of the configuration process as described below:

 

for more detailed instructions you may check this website .

The ibeacon should respond to every command sent by the python program.

Using Ibeacons with Internet of Things(IoT) Devices

It's the 22nd century, it is the time when technology has improved so much that made living healthy and happy accompanied by convenience improved so much too. But there are certain issues like knowing in real time the food inventories inside the refrigerator for busy hardworking moms and dads that has yet to be addressed by technology even though these issues can be easily solved nowadays with the help of Ibeacons and Internet of Things(IoT) enabled Devices.

source:Smart Fidge

Let's have a look at the problems of storing foods and the current issues:

1. Without proper monitoring, some foods inside the fridge gets rotten.
2. Some of the foods even if not yet rotten, are already expired.
3. You got surprised visits from friends or relatives.
4. You know that your fresh milk needs to be replenished but you forgot because you are busy.
5. Mom asked you to buy a rare vinegar but you forgot again
6. You happen to drop by after an office hour in a huge grocery store, you are tired and exhausted and you find it too difficult to find the product that you are supposed to buy.

Here's how technology make things convenient:

1. Get an IoT enabled refrigerator, it is a smart machine fully equipped with barcode scanners and connects to an inventory apps. You may choose to have this monitored by your personal food supplier and what they do is if they detected that you need to replenish your milk, they will either notify you and if you approve, they will instantly deliver the product to your door or you may eliminate the process of approving, and you just pay them on a monthly basis. 
2. You found out that having a personal food supplier is too advance and that you enjoy going to the grocery to buy them by yourself but you are busy and needs some form of assistant to remind you. But luckily, grocery stores use ibeacons and they have an app that can also access the contents of the smart fridge, so if you happen to pass by the grocery, the app will instantly remind you that you need to replenish your fresh milk.
3. Obviously, the smart fridge can detect if there are rotten or expired stocks and sends an alarm to your smart phone and  if you haven't taken any action, the grocery store or your personal food supplier can detect this and will send a reminder.

Aren't these ideas cool?