![]() If you are using native android, you have to have an app open that is listening, and batteries may not be as efficient. If you have most Apple devices, the device is always listening for the iBeacon at the operating system level, with very low battery draw. Oh, I should note now that iBeacons work differently in android and iOS. Someone with a set up like at, where he already has the ITach and he already has a local server set up, could probably do a lot with ibeacons now. They also have built-in integration for gLOBAL cache’s Wi-Fi to IR Bridge, iTach, which is intriguing. I don’t know for sure, but based on what they do have and don’t have, I’m assuming this is all via Wi-Fi. I’m going to borrow some WeMo switches just to see how that goes. I’m not planning to go that route myself.īeecon has some built-in home automation integrations, but it’s all stuff I don’t have: wemo, Phillips, and LifX. I looked into zapier, but it only polls every five minutes at the expensive rate, and every 15 at the regular rate so that doesn’t help.īoth Geohopper and beecon can do a get or a push to Web servers, so someone who had a local server set up could probably get really fast processing. Right now I’m getting really quick response with IFTTT and SMS messages for other presence detection methods, but I need to figure out how to trigger those from Beacon detection. In my particular case, I really want to use immediate proximity for touchless switches, so I need something quicker. So good for a lot of purposes, but not when I’m looking for. We’ve tried RSS, email, gmail, and Twitter, all through IFTTT, and everything works fine, but with delays between three minutes and 15 minutes. ![]() The issue is still getting the trigger to SmartThings. Using the Beecon app gives a lot more choices, so that’s the one I’m using. Still waiting on estimotes.ĭetection continues to be fast and reliable. We are continuing to experiment with the Geohopper. No idea what the problem was although ICE from reviews that other people also had issues. We did finally get Beecon to find it, although we had to unplug the Geohopper a couple of times. Let know if you ever got Beecon to pick it up. I just picked-up a Geohopper as well, though if the Beecon app can’t find it I might return it and pickup a RadBeacon USB ( ). Which is probably why Apple has been noticeably silent about I beacons In relation to HomeKit.Īnd probably why companies like smartthings don’t have it already in their mobile apps. But it’s going to be trickier and more expensive then initial expectations. So it’s better for arrivals then it is for “present.” In fact, some people who use Geohopper end up leaving the phone at their desk when they go to the restroom so they don’t trigger the “away” condition.Īnyway, eventually I think we are going to have IBeacon based microlocation. Not so well with someone walking around the room. Geohopper works well to catch someone coming through the door or sitting at a desk. Triples the cost and quintuples the complexity. So Estimote and other companies making I beacons are mostly basing micro location for the “In the room” level on two or three IBeacons all registering at the same time. But while that’s great for a proximity switch, it doesn’t meet the use case most people are looking for with micro location. They work best for the “immediate” range, within 2 to 4 feet, mostly because there are fewer things that can interfere in that range. They’re certainly good enough for retail store use, where I just want to try to catch someone who is near a display, and if I only catch eight out of 10 people that’s okay. Because the distance sensing is based on signal strength, anything that interferes with the signal suddenly changes the detection. It just turned out that in practice that it’s hard to get this right. The biggest problem for practical use is local interference patterns. Otherwise we would have microlocation for presence in every app that ran on a smart phone. Getting I beacons right is a lot harder than it seems at first, which is why so few apps use them now. Okay, back to the question of ibeacons and the smart things mobile app.
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