When implementing Bluetooth Low Energy — BLE — asset tracking projects, hardware selection is important. BLE tags should match the type of asset and its operating conditions, while gateways must receive tag data correctly and transmit it to the platform.
That is why, when developing Tags, we pay attention not only to the capabilities of the solution itself but also to how it works with hardware from different manufacturers.
Recently, Lansitec contacted us with an offer to test its devices with our platform. After discussing office and multi-site asset tracking scenarios, we selected several BLE beacons and tags for testing.
In this article, we will talk about this hardware, its configuration, and how it works together with Tags, as well as review several asset tracking scenarios.
Lansitec manufacturer
Lansitec is a hardware manufacturer for Internet of Things (IoT) projects. The company develops devices for tracking and positioning assets and people, including BLE beacons and tags, GNSS trackers, sensors, and gateways. Its products use technologies such as Bluetooth, LoRaWAN, NB-IoT/LTE-M, Cat-1, and UWB.
GNSS trackers use satellite positioning systems to determine location outdoors.
LoRaWAN, NB-IoT/LTE-M, and Cat-1 are used for data transmission in IoT devices, while UWB enables more accurate positioning over short distances.
For testing, Lansitec BLE tags supporting standard BLE advertising formats, including iBeacon and Eddystone, were selected.
As part of our test, the tags were configured to transmit data in the iBeacon format, which made it possible to use them together with GPS devices integrated into GPS-Trace and capable of acting as gateways.
Tags solution
Tags works with three main entities:
Gateway — a device that receives data from BLE tags, beacons, or sensors and transmits it to the platform.
Sensor — a data source. In this test, Lansitec BLE beacons and tags acted as sensors.
Asset — a physical object that needs to be tracked: cargo, a container, a trolley, a tool, a laptop, a camera, medical or other equipment. In Tags, an asset is linked to a sensor, and data from the sensor is sent to the platform through a gateway.
Access to Tags and configuration of these entities are performed through GPS-Trace Console.
Gateway selection and configuration
As gateways, we used Teltonika FMC130, FMC150, FMC920 and FMC880 trackers. They support Bluetooth and can receive data from BLE devices operating, among others, in iBeacon and Eddystone formats. In addition, they allow custom rules to be set for processing BLE advertising packets: defining which bytes should be used to recognize the required packet and which data should be extracted from it.
An advertising packet is a short message that a BLE tag regularly transmits via Bluetooth.
The required parameters for receiving data from Lansitec BLE tags and transmitting it to the platform were configured on Teltonika trackers using Teltonika Configurator, namely:
- Data Protocol: Codec 8 Extended
- Bluetooth: BT Radio enabled
- Beacon Detection: All
- Beacon Record Saving: Periodic
- Beacon Record Priority: High
- Record Period on Move/Stop: 20 sec
Next, in the Beacon List section, we selected Beacon Parsing Mode: Advanced and set the rules by which the tracker identifies the required BLE packets and extracts data from them. In the Beacons Capturing Configuration section, the following parameters were used for configuration:
- Manufacturer ID: 4C000200
- Manufacturer ID Offset: 5
- Manufacturer ID Size: 3
- Beacon ID Offset: 9
- Beacon ID Size: 16
- Additional Data Offset: 25
- Additional Data Size: 1
- Beacon ID Source: MAC Address
If you plan to test a similar setup, you can request the Teltonika tracker configuration file by contacting us at support@gps-trace.com.
Sensor selection and configuration
For testing, Lansitec provided the following BLE device models, which we used:
Asset selection and configuration
For testing, we created several assets in Tags and linked each asset to its Lansitec sensor:
- office and car keys — B003 Bluetooth Beacon;
- employee laptops — B002 Bluetooth Label;
- equipment boxes — B005 Bluetooth Beacon;
- camera and projector — i3 Portable Bluetooth Tag.
When selecting a model, we took into account the type and size of the object, as well as the way the tag is attached. These assets and their linked sensors were used in both testing scenarios.
Use cases
Depending on the task, the same combination of BLE tags, gateways, and Tags can be used in different ways. As part of testing, we considered two scenarios that differed in gateway placement and the required accuracy of asset location detection:
- Tracking assets in an office.
- Tracking assets across different sites.
Based on these scenarios, many others can be created depending on the customer’s specific tasks, including combinations of both.
Let’s take a closer look at each of them.
First scenario: tracking office equipment
Imagine a company that needs to track office equipment: laptops, cameras, projectors, toolkits, and other valuable assets. It is important to know whether the equipment is in the office, when it leaves the office, which floor it is on, and approximately where it is located indoors.
To test this scenario, we placed gateways in different parts of the office and on several floors: three gateways on the sixth floor and one more on the fifth. Tags allows a gateway to be fixed at a specific point on the map of the corresponding building layer. This is especially important for indoor tracking, since satellite positioning can be unstable there and does not allow determining which floor the device is on.
Next, the assets with BLE tags attached to them were moved between different office rooms and floors, simulating normal equipment use.
A BLE tag regularly transmits a signal, and nearby gateways detect its presence and the received signal strength level — RSSI.
RSSI shows how strong the signal received by the gateway from a BLE tag is and helps determine which gateway the tag is closest to.
If several gateways see the same tag, the platform combines the received data. Taking into account the gateway locations and signal strength, Tags calculates the approximate position of the asset and displays it on the correct layer and in the relevant zone.
In our test, this configuration made it possible to track the approximate location of equipment in different zones of a floor, as well as its movement between floors. When equipment with a BLE tag was moved, its location was displayed on the corresponding layer and in the corresponding zone in Tags.
Asset movement can be tracked in real time, and its history can also be viewed: in table form or using the movement playback feature. For example, the video below shows a laptop moving between zones and layers.
For further work with the received data, Tags provides additional tools: system labels (“no signal” or “movement”) and custom labels, notifications and triggers, as well as reports with the ability to export data in CSV format.
Second scenario: tracking across multiple sites
Imagine a company that has several offices, warehouses, or other sites in different parts of the city. Assets regularly move between them, so it is important to know which site a specific object is located at, when it arrived there, and how long it has been there.
To test this scenario, we used several sites with one gateway installed at each location. In Tags, each site was configured as a separate layer. When a tag entered the gateway’s coverage area, the received data was transmitted to Tags and made it possible to determine the asset’s presence on the corresponding layer.
In this scenario, the exact position of the asset inside the building was not the main task. It was important to determine its presence at a specific site and the duration of its stay there. For example, this information can be viewed on the “Events” tab in Tags.
The received data makes it possible to quickly find the required assets, view their movement history, analyze the duration of their stay at each site, and generate reports.
As an example, the screenshot above shows a report on asset presence on layers over 10 days. In the report, you can:
- view data as a timeline or a list of events;
- see how much time each asset spent on a specific layer;
- check the total number of events for the selected period;
- see the number of visited layers;
- analyze the total duration of stay;
- check the number of currently active assets;
- export the report in CSV format.
For each asset, you can also open a separate card and view the related data.
Testing results
The test confirmed that Lansitec BLE beacons and tags can transmit data to Tags through Teltonika trackers used as gateways.
This configuration is suitable for approximate equipment location detection inside a building, as well as for recording the presence and movement of assets between floors, sites, and other predefined zones.
In Tags, the received data can be used to view history, configure notifications, analyze statistics, and generate reports.
At the same time, the capabilities of Tags are not limited to Lansitec devices. The current operating principle of the solution allows BLE beacons, tags, and sensors from different manufacturers to be used, provided they transmit data in standard iBeacon and Eddystone formats and the gateway used supports receiving and transmitting this data to the platform.