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About Outdoor Staff Safe coverage

Outdoor Staff Safe coverage extends duress alerting to outdoor areas — including parking lots, garages, and the spaces around a building.

Parking Lot coverage uses three Kontakt.io devices: Smart Badges, Outdoor Gateways, and Base Stations. Together they send outdoor alert activity to Staff Safe.

How Parking Lot coverage works

When a staff member activates a duress alert from a Kio Smart Badge outdoors, the badge sends a Bluetooth Low Energy signal. Nearby Outdoor Gateways pick it up and relay it over LoRaWAN to a Base Station. The Base Station forwards it to the Kontakt.io cloud, where Staff Safe shows the outdoor alert location.

Outdoor Staff Safe signal path: a Kio Smart Badge sends Bluetooth Low Energy to an Outdoor Gateway, which relays over LoRaWAN to a Base Station, which forwards over the site network (Ethernet or Wi-Fi) to the Kontakt.io cloud and on to Staff Safe

Installers do not need to be LoRaWAN experts, but they do need to understand how the devices communicate. That understanding drives good mounting locations and helps avoid signal blockers.

Note: The Base Station is the Milesight UG-65 LoRaWAN base station, and the Outdoor Gateway is the LW003B-Pro BLE-to-LoRaWAN gateway.

What each device does

Kio Smart Badge

The Kio Smart Badge is the device staff wear. They activate a duress alert from it when they need help.

In Parking Lot coverage, the badge sends Bluetooth Low Energy signals that nearby Outdoor Gateways detect.

Outdoor Gateway

The Outdoor Gateway (LW003B-Pro) is installed in the parking lot or garage: on a lighting pole in an open parking lot, or on garage ceiling metal rods or a concrete surface in a garage. It listens for Kio Smart Badge signals over Bluetooth Low Energy and relays them to a Base Station over LoRaWAN.

Outdoor Gateways are battery powered and do not connect to the local Wi-Fi or Ethernet network.

For best results, Outdoor Gateways must be:

  • Mounted at the correct height.
  • Pointed toward a Base Station.
  • Spaced close enough to avoid coverage gaps.
  • Kept clear of signal blockers such as buildings, large signs, trees, and parked vehicle stacks.

For the installation steps, see Install an Outdoor Gateway.

Base Station

The Base Station (Milesight UG-65) receives LoRaWAN data from Outdoor Gateways and forwards it to the Kontakt.io cloud.

For an open parking lot, the Base Station is installed indoors, on a top-floor wall or in a network closet. Either spot needs a clear signal path toward the parking lot. For a parking garage, it is installed in a hospital building next to the garage or inside the garage, at the location in the deployment plan.

The Base Station connects to the site network by wired Ethernet, which is recommended, or by Wi-Fi when a wired connection cannot be provided.

One Base Station can cover up to 1,200 ft (400 m) in any direction across a parking lot. That figure is a planning estimate: the number of Base Stations and their locations come from the on-site survey. For backup coverage, install at least two Base Stations with overlapping coverage.

Install and verify at least one Base Station before installing Outdoor Gateways. For the installation steps, see Install a Base Station.

Bluetooth Low Energy and LoRaWAN

Parking Lot coverage uses two wireless technologies. Each one has a different job.

Technology Used between What it does
Bluetooth Low Energy Kio Smart Badge and Outdoor Gateway Detects nearby badges in the outdoor coverage area.
LoRaWAN Outdoor Gateway and Base Station Sends data across longer outdoor distances with low power use.

Bluetooth Low Energy handles nearby badge detection. LoRaWAN carries the data the longer distance to the Base Station.

Why placement matters

Parking Lot coverage depends on clear signal paths.

The Outdoor Gateway must hear badge signals from the parking-lot surface. It must also reach the Base Station over LoRaWAN. Poor placement can cause weak coverage, missed badge detections, or devices that do not come online after installation. If a device stays offline after you install it, see Troubleshooting: Outdoor Gateway stays offline after install or Troubleshooting: Base Station cannot reach the cloud endpoint.

Use these placement rules for open parking lots during planning and installation. In a parking garage, mounting height, spacing on each level, and the line-of-sight to the Base Station come from the site survey and the deployment plan.

  • Mount each Outdoor Gateway at least 9 ft (2.5 m) above the parking-lot surface.
  • Mount at or above 12 ft (3.7 m) when the pole allows it.
  • Keep the Outdoor Gateway antenna and power button facing down.
  • Point the Outdoor Gateway front face toward the selected Base Station.
  • Space adjacent Outdoor Gateways 80 ft to 120 ft (24 m to 37 m) apart.
  • Do not exceed 120 ft between adjacent Outdoor Gateways.
  • Keep the Base Station antenna vertical.
  • Install the Base Station as high as practical, with a clear signal path to the parking lot.
  • Do not mount the Base Station lower than the Outdoor Gateways or below ground level.
  • Plan coverage for the lot at peak occupancy. A full lot blocks more signal than an empty one.

Common signal blockers

Avoid placing devices where the signal path is blocked by:

  • Buildings or building corners.
  • Dense trees.
  • Large signs.
  • Dumpster enclosures.
  • HVAC equipment.
  • Metal cabinets or closed IT racks.
  • Low-E glass or metallized window film.
  • Parked vehicle stacks.
  • Lighting-pole metalwork above the Outdoor Gateway.

If a device is mounted in a blocked location, it may still power on but fail to stay online or provide poor outdoor coverage.

Install Parking Lot coverage in this order:

  1. Complete the site survey and the deployment plan. They set the location and mounting method for each device.
  2. Create the Parking Lot floor in Smart Location.
  3. Install and configure the Base Station. See Install a Base Station.
  4. Verify the Base Station in Kio Setup Manager.
  5. Confirm the Base Station appears Online in Device Management.
  6. For each Outdoor Gateway, complete the whole workflow before you start the next one: power it on, install it in Kio Setup Manager, place it on the Parking Lot floor map, and mount it at its planned mounting point. See Install an Outdoor Gateway.
  7. After you finish a parking lot or a garage level, check every Outdoor Gateway in that area while the crew is still on site.
  8. Validate Parking Lot coverage according to the deployment test plan.

Configuring a batch of gateways first and mounting them later mixes up which gateway is where, and every mix-up puts badges in the wrong place on the map.

What installers should confirm before leaving the site

Before leaving the site, confirm:

  • Each Base Station is verified in Kio Setup Manager.
  • Each Base Station appears Online in Device Management.
  • Each Outdoor Gateway appears Online in Device Management.
  • Each Outdoor Gateway map pin matches the pole or ceiling point where the gateway is mounted.
  • Each Outdoor Gateway is mounted with the antenna and power button facing down.
  • Each Outdoor Gateway front face points toward the selected Base Station.
  • Outdoor Gateway spacing follows the deployment plan.
  • For a wired Base Station, the default Wi-Fi access point is turned off after configuration. For a Base Station on Wi-Fi, the WLAN work mode is Client.
  • Each Base Station device note includes the new web-panel password and where the Base Station is located.
  • A walk across each area with a Kio Smart Badge confirms the badge is detected across the expected coverage area.