A beacon's broadcast signal range depends on its transmission power (TX Power) setting, as well as its surrounding environment. Signals can suffer interference, be diffracted, or be absorbed. To learn more, see Transmission Power (TX) best practices.
The Kontakt.io default TX Power is set to 3 (-12 dBm). A beacon's TX Power setting can be managed from the Kio Setup Manager app, Kio Cloud, and the Kontakt.io APIs and SDKs.
Table 1. Available transmission power values [dBm]
Hexadecimal value |
TX Power setting |
Transmission power (decibel-milliwatts) |
RSSI @ 3.2 ft (1 m)* |
Approximate range** |
---|---|---|---|---|
e2 |
0 |
-30 dBm |
-115 |
6.5 ft (2 m) |
ec |
1 |
-20 dBm |
-84 |
13 ft (4 m) |
f0 |
2 |
-16 dBm |
-81 |
32 ft (10 m) |
f4 |
3 |
-12 dBm |
-77 |
65 ft (20 m) |
f8 |
4 |
-8 dBm |
-72 |
98 ft (30 m) |
fc |
5 |
-4 dBm |
-69 |
131 ft (40 m) |
00 |
6 |
0 dBm |
-65 |
196 ft (60 m) |
04 |
7 |
4 dBm |
-59 |
229 ft (70 m) |
* Every TX Power level has its own calibrated RSSI @ 1m (iBeacon) or @ 0m (Eddystone).
** Range is an approximate figure and is dependent on other factors, such as the operating environment, beacon placement, and sensitivity of the receiving end device.
Card Beacon 1 (CT16-2) can only broadcast on power level 1 & 6
Power level 0 is not available for beacons that are using the nRF52 chips like Beacon Pro (BP16-3), Smart Beacon 3 (SB18-3), S18-3, Card Beacon CT18-2 etc.