A couple of questions about remote management and protocol selection

Answered

Steve Harman

• 26 July 2019 08:16

Hi,

We have an enhancement to our existing solution in the education space which will be utilizing beacons around a point-based use case.  These beacons will be deployed at client sites around the US but we would need to manage them centrally from our head office.   

I have a few questions which I couldn't find answers to elsewhere on the site:

1) As I understand it our model would require a Kontakt Gateway on each site (eg; a GW16-2) to which each on-site beacon such as the SB16-2 or BP16-3 would communicate.  As the Gateway is WiFi enabled and assuming each client was internet-connected, the Gateway would be integrated into our Kontact.io account allowing us to remotely manage each beacon that the Gateway could see.   Is that correct?

2) Concerning the Gateway & Beacons at each client site; Judging by the product page on Koktakt.io I'm assuming that beacons such as the SB16-2 and BP16-3 are not WiFi enabled?   Therefore if we had a large client-site or a site with lots of thick walls and so on, how would the site's gateway see all installed beacons?  I could understand it if beacons were WiFi-enabled, they would register with the site's WiFi LAN and could be seen from any Gateway on that WLAN.  Would a large-client-site require multiple on-site Gateways?

3) Finally; when adding beacons to my basket via the Kontakt Store there's a note which says:  "You'll be able to choose the beacon format (iBeacon or Eddystone) after you add beacons to your cart."   This could be taken to mean there are two fixed types of Beacon - one which supports Eddystone & one iBeacon.   Yet elsewhere on the very same page, it states "Don't limit yourself to either Eddystone or iBeacon
Broadcast iBeacon and Eddystone frames together or just the ones you need."   

I'm confused about the purpose of specifying the beacon format at the cart stage if Kontakt beacons offer both beacon protocols?  Do we have to decide which protocol our beacons will use when ordering them?

Any help would be much appreciated.  :-)

Thanks,

Steve

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  Damian Kuźma

  • 02 August 2019 01:16

  Hi Steve,

   

  1. That is correct. When you have an active subscription for Location Engine or Infrastructure Management, you will be able to remotely see the status of all nearby beacons like battery status as well as be able to make any changes to the beacon settings and firmware updates.

  2. Beacons are not connected to the internet in any way and the only option is to use BLE. If you need to have access to all of the beacons they need to be covered by the Gateway so in case of large sites, multiple Gateways are required.

  3. All of Kontakt.io beacons support both protocols and can be chosen freely once you receive the devices. In some cases, clients do not need to reconfigure their devices and they need either plain Eddystone or iBeacon which we can preconfigure before shipping.

  Please also note that the beacons can be also configured via the Kontakt.io Mobile App or SDK.

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