Cloud Beacon platform eliminerer hardwaredesign
En ny Cloud Beacon platform fra det polske starup firma, Kontakt.io, kræver kun en meget simpel setup ved hver beacon, som efterfølgende kan monitoreres via cloud'en (in english).
Ultra low power (ULP) RF specialist Nordic Semiconductor announces that Polish startup, Kontakt.io, has specified the Nordic nRF51822 Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) to provide the Bluetooth Smart (formerly known as Bluetooth low energy) wireless connectivity in Kontakt.io's Cloud Beacon pre-integrated beacon hardware platform.Kontakt.io says its Cloud Beacon platform will eventually include a wearable rubber wristband option (that will also incorporate Nordic wireless technology) for tracking people such as children in schools or while out on a school day trip, healthcare patients, and workers in manufacturing facilities for health and safety purposes.
In operation, Kontakt.io works with its customers to custom-build the beacon hardware infrastructure required for their particular application (right down to the beacon casing design, color, and logo branding). Kontakt.io says these beacons are then delivered as ready-to-go devices that are as easy to configure as sending an email from a web browser.
The ultra low power operating characteristics of the Nordic nRF51822 are said to help enable each Kontakt.io Cloud Beacon to run for up to six years from an internal rechargeable battery (under typical usage conditions) if not powered from a mains power supply, which is also an option.
The customer is then said to be free to focus on building their own user-facing app on top of the Kontakt.io beacon hardware infrastructure - which Kontakt.io says is where the customer's expertise usually lies - instead of having to worry about beacon hardware design - where Kontakt.io says its customers' core expertise usually does not reside.
Kontakt.io says in progress customer application examples of its Cloud Beacon platform include navigation solutions for the visually impaired (e.g. using their smartphones to navigate around both indoors and outdoors more autonomously); indoor navigation of major public buildings and sites (including a on-going project to 'beaconify' San Francisco International Airport); a smartphone-based payment system for a local alternative to the British GB Pound currency called the 'Brixton Pound' that can be spent only within the Brixton area of London to boost and retain local trade and investment; music festival management and marketing to festivalgoers both during and after an event; targeted parking promotions offering free parking to relevant customers as they drive past various businesses registered to the scheme; and an interactive restaurant rewards-scheme.
- We see a day where low cost beacons will be used everywhere to take the hassle out of everyday life and make various everyday tasks easier and more efficient and intelligent, based on proximity interaction, says Jack Hassan, Chief Brand Officer at Kontakt.io.
- This is being driven by the advent of Bluetooth Smart wireless technology and its ubiquity in modern smartphones and computing devices, and its ultra low power operation that supports extended, multi-year battery lifetimes from small batteries.
- We have partnered with Nordic Semiconductor since day one and their consistent technological support, even when we were a very small company, has enabled us to continually develop and further enhance our beacon platform to meet ever-growing customer demand, sharp increases in shipment volumes, and on-going customer-generated requests for new functions and features, says Szymon Niemczura, CEO of Kontakt.io and continues:
- This includes, for example, a unique cloning feature whereby we can send an exact clone of any missing beacon to customers because the exact configuration of all our beacons are stored in the cloud at all times; plus various levels of password protection, security, cloud management, protocol enhancements, and hand shaking routines, that individually don't sound like much but add-up to make a huge difference to what we are able to promise and deliver at the end application stage.
- The power of beacons is the way in which they can connect the off-line world with the on-line world at low cost and complexity using predominantly Bluetooth Smart wireless technology and smartphone apps, comments Geir Langeland, Nordic Semiconductor's Director of Sales & Marketing.
- This moves users from having to manually interact with their smartphone in order to provide context about the world around them, to having this process occur in a more natural, automatic, and ultimately useful or beneficial way.
