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Here's my setup:

iMac with BeaconOSX iPhone with Proximitask

I am successfully broadcasting a signal and am getting notifications as I come and go to my office. However, the reminders are getting triggered well outside of the building and sometimes rapidly & repeatedly triggering when I'm 5 rooms away just sitting in the conference room.

BeaconOSX has 3 values I can adjust (other than the UUID):

  • major (5)
  • minor (5000)
  • measured pwr (currently set at -10)

The initial value of measured pwr was -59, and that's when it was triggering things on my phone from outside the building. Increasing that value to -10 seems to have helped somewhat. Today's reminders went off just outside my section of the building, but I'd like it to me as accurate as when I step inside my office.

I've read that beacons need to be calibrated, but with just BeaconOSX and Proximitask, I don't think I know how to do that. I also read that increasing measured pwr increases the signal strength, making distance estimation more accurate. Is reducing that value also a valid way of preventing the triggerings from happening outside my office? Is there software I can use for calibration?

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We launched an iBeacon, nfc, proximity App called HelloLocal (http://www.hellolocal.me) that we're implementing into shopping centers, cities and various other locations.

One of the biggest challenges for us when implementing dense arrangements of beacons has been the balancing of signal strength, especially when we have multiple beacons within and area.

There are a few things I would suggest doing:

  1. Look at using an App that helps calibrate your beacon. Our tech team have one that they have used but I can't recall the name. Let me know if you are interested in this and I'll chase it up. We have our own CMS sitting off the back of our App that we're now able to control / tweak the signal strength within the CMS so we're not using a calibrator anymore. This makes things much easier :)

  2. Use your major and minor settings. This isn't ideal as one of the great features of beacons is being able to do different things (i.e. load different content) at the various settings. I'd personally prefer not to be set to one.

  3. Wrap the beacon in silver foil (aluminium foil for baking etc). This can soften the beacon signal strength.

Hope this info helps!

Brent

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  • I think #2 is the only viable option you suggested, since my beacon signal is generated by my computer (thus I cannot wrap it in foil and I assume the app is for calibrating a beacon separate from the computer?), but how do I adjust the major & minor values? What happens when you make them smaller/bigger? What do the values do?
    – hepcat72
    Commented Dec 6, 2014 at 23:41
  • Hi, I'm no help with this unfortunately. with regard to your point on accuracy, keep in mind that there are a few contributing factors that can have a big impact on detection distance. 1. angle of device to beacon. 2. the beacon signal is a waveform and moves up and down. 3. different wall, electricity, wifi etc will impact beacons. We've found that they don't like solid wood or concrete. Also, placing beacons near something that is electrical can impact signal. Given your computer is you beacon I'm not sure how this would come into play.
    – Brent Nolan
    Commented Dec 7, 2014 at 6:28

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