How to monitor several beacons in an open area with one Hub.

[Vikindio]

Hi.

We are a Norwegian company trying to create a prototype to monitoring people. We are already waiting our BLE 5 with ANT capabilities to start creating the prototype. But we are right now having a hard time to find the right and best device to monitor all the beacons. Do you have any idea or suggestion of what we could use as a hub, reader/receiver for all those beacons we want to deploy in a open space area? The Hub/reader need to be able to handle 50 to 100 beacons at a time, ant this reader/hub is the only device connected to the main PC by ethernet. We plan to extend and improve the options, like 2 way comunication and other type of sensors. But for now only we could get the beacons send a small amount of date to position them (triangulate) in an area that will have several Hubs/readers so we can triangulate them, but each hub/reader needs to be able to handle from 50 to 100 beacons at on time.

[Vikindio]

Thanks Roger. ANT is a must for our system, the new nRF52840 BLE 5 comes with mesh networking and its a key factor for our system. We will get these chips by the end of the month, and we will start putting the beacons together. But we are still trying to look for the right hub/reader that can handle a mesh network and a bunch of beacons at the same time. We got as an example the new sensoro that looks and by the specs. works fantastic. Then also we have the "pixie point" that triangulats the beacons by inches, and thats impresive and thats what we are aiming for. Do you have any suggestion on how we should triangulate the BLE 5 beacons? any hub/reader you know of that could help us to start with this?

[Vikindio]

Thanks Sigurd. We will get our BLE 5 chips by end of this month, and we are exciting to start putting together our beacons. But we still having a hard time to find the right hub/receiver that can read all this beacons and at the same time work in a mesh networking, the key factor of why we are using this BLE 5. Or should we just aim to build our own hubs/receivers? do you have any suggestion what should be the best parts/technology to use on this hubs/receivers? The software we are developing will have several functionalities and options, but from the beacons and hub side, they will only be doing monitoring/positioning, we will use as less amount of data as possible for better battery life. So small data to position them is the key. We have as a reference "pixie point" that can position the beacon by inches, and thats impressive and thats what we aim for. Any suggestion and info about this will be highly appreciated Sigur, thanks!

[endnode]

Hi Vikindio, all what I've found about Pixie seems to work with >5m accuracy (e.g. here they claim 10-45m which seems to be perfectly in-line with BLE RSSI experience from such basic solutions). Do you have more details explaining how ANT mesh, BT5.0 mesh, nRF52840 and location tracking relates to each other in your solution? So far it doesn't make much sense and it prevents us to give you more specific answers. Also as far as I know nRF52840 is just preview (= pre-production) version with pretty extensive anomaly list and poor SW support. Full production versions should come in the end of 2017, I'm wondering if this influences your project...

[Roger Clark]

The information Pixie was vague.

The only statement I can find on location accuracy is "within inches", which is open to a lot of interpretation e.g. 6 inches, 12 inches, 18 inches.

Their youtube video was uploaded in 2015 and the last comment was a year ago.

The implication was that they use a mesh network, but they may simply be scanning and then rebroadcasting the RSSI and MAC address of every device they can hear.

I couldn't see any data on the battery life. They are a very small product, so the battery capacity is only likely to be 500mAH at the most, (probably less)

Mesh networks are power hungry, so I wonder how long each tag lasts. BTW. I noticed a comment on YouTube that the batteries were not replaceable.

Edit. Thinking about the mesh networking, perhaps full mesh functionality is only needed when the user wants to locate a beacon. So perhaps they normally just adveritse

[David Edwin]

wizwiki.net/.../doku.php , seems to have already done the nRF5x to Ethernet integration. PoE integration also seems to be available so a hub solution for a controlled environment seems to be possible. See also devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../