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Bluetooth Beacons Technology Overview
Bluetooth Beacons are a hardware transmitter similar to an active RFID tag. They require very little infrastructure to setup and offer very long read ranges. Beacons broadcast their identification to nearby devices, like smartphones and in our case Bluetooth Gateways to identify and interact with them. This enables BLE devices to be used in a wide variety of different applications, usually involving the tracking of an item or person. BLE devices are battery powered, and can function for dozens of months straight without requiring a change in battery.
While not a replacement for RFID, Bluetooth Beacons are a viable alternative for many scenarios in which an RFID solution would be too impractical or too difficult to configure. Beacons can be affixed to a high value item or person, and can report its own location quickly and easily with a much simpler and potentially inexpensive setup than a conventional RFID system.
Beacon Gateways
BLE Beacon Gateways are the "reader" for your Bluetooth Beacons. Small enough to fit in any location, and powerful enough to fit any need.
Eddystone Beacons
Eddystone beacons are an open beacon format developed by Google. With 3 different types of payloads supported, you can tailor it to your exact specifications. It is compatible with most BLE gateways, as well as Android devices that support BLE scanning. ClearStream supports all Eddystone beacons.
iBeacon Beacons
iBeacon is a beacon format developed by Apple that transmits a UUID, Major/Minor number to individually identify an item or asset. It is compatible with most BLE gateways, as well as iOS, and Android devices. ClearStream supports all iBeacon beacons.