Wednesday 5 October 2016

Bluetooth Low Energy

Lost in a museum

  

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you've lost touch with your schoolmates during a school trip to a museum and stranded ,undecided on where and what to do?Well,I bet many of us have gone through such a situation or a similar one?But thanks to Apple,you'll never get caught up in such a situation.
In 2013,Apple came up with a technology called Ibeacon  that uses Bluetooth low energy(BLE) communication to transmit a
universally unique identifier picked up by a compatible app or operating system. The identifier can be used to determine the device's physical location  or trigger a location-based action .  Now back to the situation I mentioned earlier.You've just lost touch with your schoolmates on a school trip to the museum and stranded.Now this is what you can do.You need to go to the administrator of the museum ,they'll give you their Ibeacon detector app.Once your IOS Device installs the app and running the app, it can be programmed to look for the museums UUID(identifier). When it detects it, it looks at the major and minor values and can determine which of the museums your classmates are in as well as the room the you are in.This is only  possible if the museum has placed  an  Ibeacon that acts as a transmitter.
When the museum app  picks up a transmitter(present in the room your classmates are in)containing the museum UUID of “122549566-18S1-1GE1-B3A1-25F8135C7D21″ and a major of 1 and minor of 16, it knows the schoolmates are in the museum and in room 16 of that museum.
Easy,isn't it?Think of supermarkets that could put them around the shelves so you can more easily find products.

  


example,you visit a supermarket to buy snowdent toothpaste  and already  the snowdent team had given you their ibeacon detector app,you run it on your IOS device and start detecting and picking up the  transmitter offers.The beacons placed at the snowdent  shelves will start transmitting to your IOS Device indicator the place they are and on which row or column they are located.Once your IOS device (acting as the receiver)picks up the transmitter 'broadcast' or 'offers'.You'll be able to get the physical location the snowdent product is located.Saves time,isn't it?
The protocol uses the Bluetooth Low Energy communication and it can work with your ordinary bluetooth(4.0) providing your operating system is compatible.My hope is that businesses pick up the use of the ibeacons or even buy the beacons(  iBeacon-compatible hardware transmitters) that can be bought from various vendors like cubeacon e.t.c

Cubeacon