I'm developing a small application based on technology iBeacon.
The general idea is to place a beacon on each piece of art in a museum that has certain information associated.
The problem comes when several beacons are too close together, despite configure the beacon with the lowest transmission power, the application detects both beacons.
I have tried several manufacturers, Estimote, radius networks, onyx beacon, BlueCat ...
Even setting the beacons at the lowest level of transmission, 0.5 to 1 meters, according to their specifications.Located in front of a piece of art, the application detects the nearest beacon, but also detects beacons that are more than 4 meters. How is this possible if according to the manufacturers, the distance broadcasting in the lower range is about one meter?
Any idea about it? I would appreciate some help.
Thanks
It's important to understand that Bluetooth beacons are radio transmitters. Like all radio transmitters, the signal will continue for large distances, but get weaker and weaker the further it goes. There is no hard maximum distance that Bluetooth radio signals will travel. Beacons pulse out advertisements as packets over the radio. The further you go, the smaller percentage of packets will be received.
When people say that a beacon has a range of 40-50 meters, that typically means that a large percentage of the packets will be received at this distance. But it is not a hard limit. In testing in open areas, I have seen rare detections of a single beacon packet at 200 meters away.
The same principle applies when you "dial down" the transmitter power on the beacon to give it a range of only a few meters. In some cases where radio conditions are favorable (clear line of sight, phone aimed just the right direction, an object behind the beacon that reflects the signal back to you like a dish antenna) the phone will detect the beacon at a much greater distance.
A better approach for your use case may be to turn up the beacon all the way, and rely on beacon ranging to decide which beacon is closest. You would then compare the estimated distance of all the beacons that are visible and take action on the one that has the shortest distance. If you take this approach, however, be sure to turn the transmitter power back up on your beacons. The weaker the signal, the less accurate the distance estimates tend to be.