BLE Mini

BLE Shield

RedBear Beacon B1

Be the first to review this product

NOK295.20

In stock

Only 1 left

SKU

RBL-BEACON

Details

Official licensed product to use APPLE iBeacon technology and with CE,R&TTE , FCC , Bluetooth SIG Listed product.

Our Differences

Compatible with iBeacon™
Support Android 4.3 or later
Configurable to suit your Apps
Bluetooth SIG Qualified
No Overhype
Over-the-Air Firmware Upgradable
Customization Services

Bluetooth SIG End Product Listing (EPL)

"Consumers can verify that the manufacturers have fully met the requirements of qualification and be better assured of interoperability with other Bluetooth enabled products. If shipping your product, having your product listed on the EPL will indicate to customs officials that the product is genuine and meets both the requirements of qualification and trademark licensing, preventing the product from being destroyed by customs." (view source)

Up to 50 meters range and 4500 hours of battery life
You may have read other vendors could achieve longer range and better battery life, we urge to verify their claims.

Longer range means more power consumption
A typical beacon will consume 0.2mA current on average; it will have around 1.5 months 24x7 operational life if it is powered by a CR2032 coin cell battery
Our RedBear Beacon B1 runs on two triple-A batteries, which has 5 times the battery life of a single CR2032 battery

Bluetooth LE Beacon - Evolving Technology

We will provide firmware upgrade when new specification/standard is released. You will be able to upgrade the firmware in your RedBear Beacons over-the-air via Bluetooth LE.

New FirmwareWe have a new release with two important features

1. Password Protection - user must enter the correct password before any changes could be made.
2. Battery Level Broadcasting - reading is available within the broadcasting data and user can turn off this feature.

Existing B1 users could upgrade their beacons to new firmware via Bluetooth LE using our BeaconTool App for iOS; we have submitted the App for approval.

RedBear Beacon Model B1

Our RedBear Beacon B1 can operates under two modes, broadcasting mode or maintenance mode.

B1 will enter broadcasting mode at startup, by default the green LED is ON. It will broadcast Beacon signal periodically.

You can switch B1 to maintenance mode by pressing the button on the front, the LED will turn to Red.

Standard	Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy
Chipset and Stack	Texas Instruments’s CC254x SoC and BLE Stack
Antenna Type	Multilayer Chip Antenna
Physical Range	Up to 50 meters
Power Supply	Two triple-A (3A/AAA) batteries
Current Consumption (average)	0.25mA
Battery Life	4500+ hours; over 1 year (operating 12 hours per day)
Dimension - width x height x thickness	25mm x 70mm x 18.3mm

Bluetooth Services

Under maintenance mode, there are four Bluetooth Low Energy services available.

RedBear Beacon Service UUID: B0702980-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE

- for Beacon settings, more details in next section

Device Information Service UUID: 180A
There are two characteristics you should pay attention to.

1. UUID: 2A28, Software Revision String
- this represents the software revision for the Beacon software within B1, the latest version is "20131128"
2. UUID: 38837046-FE96-4335-B751-D4826198F337, Device Name String
- you can rename the broadcasting device name of your B1

Battery Service UUID: 180F
- showing the remain battery life as a percentage
- please noted that the Red LED light on B1 will keep flashing when battery level fall to 30% or below

Firmware Upgrade Service UUID: E6775403-F0DD-40C4-87DB-95E755738AD1

- reserved for Over-The-Air firmware upgrade
(available in Feb 2014, more details about the new firmware will be published later)

RedBear Beacon Service

Under RedBear Beacon Service, there are seven Bluetooth Low Energy characteristics.

Beacon UUID UUID: 0xB0702881-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE

- a unique 16-bytes value in HEX for advertising

Major identity ID UUID: 0xB0702882-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE

- a 2-bytes value, ranging from 0 to 65535 (0xFFFF)

Minor identity ID UUID: 0xB0702883-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE

- a 2-bytes value, ranging from 0 to 65535 (0xFFFF)

Measured Power UUID: 0xB0702884-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE

- a 1-byte signed value, ranging from -100 to 0
- This is an average RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indication) of the beacon measured at approximately one meter from an iOS device. This is a reference value in order for iOS to determine the distance between an iOS device and a beacon.
- Please refer to Apple's AirLocate sample about how to obtain Measured Power for your Beacon

LED Switch UUID: 0xB0702885-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE

- a 1-byte value used to control the on-board green LED, either OFF (0x00) or ON (0x01)
- default is ON

Advertising Interval UUID: 0xB0702886-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE

- a 2-bytes value, ranging from 100ms (0x0064) to 10000ms (0x2710) on a incremental of 5ms unit
- default is 250ms
- the time between each Beacon signal broadcasted; shorter time will have better response time and accuracy, however this will increase the power consumption due to more broadcasting in the same period of time.

Output Power UUID: 0xB0702887-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE

- a 1-byte value, four available settings: -23dBm (0x00), -6dBm (0x01), 0dBm (0x02) or 4dBm (0x03)
- default is 0dBm (*our beacon is optimized to run at 0dBm.)
- the output power setting of the Texas Instruments CC254x IC; higher power should mean longer range and higher power consumption.

Based on users' feedback over the past few months. We have produced a Bluetooth LE Beacon specially engineered for Location Based Services (LBS), our RedBear Beacon B1.

RedBear Beacon is a dedicated beacon device and does not support BLE Mini or third party firmware; its firmware will not be open sourced and has proprietary iBeacon and LBS features.

MiniBeacon (iBeacon for BLE Mini)

We have posted the source code on GitHub.

Feature

Tested with latest iOS 7 & 8
Run standalone as iBeacon, Arduino or external host is not required.
You can customize your own iBeacon configuration including UUID etc.
You can run multiple BLE Mini iBeacons at the same time.
No soldering work is required if power through Micro USB.

You have three options to power BLE Mini
- VIN pin (J4), 3.6V to 11V
- Micro USB connector, 5V
- Coin Cell Battery, 2.3V to 3.6V
(We will optimize the power consumption once the iBeacon specification is made public, in the mean time no battery performance data can be provided.)

Quick Start

You can power our BLE Mini with a 5V power source through the micro USB connector; if you do not intend to use coin cell battery or other power source, no soldering work is required.

Step 1. Upload the latest MiniBeacon Firmware into BLE Mini

Note: If you have developed your own firmware for BLE Mini that utilize the EEPROM, please backup your data in the EEPROM before using this firmware as part of the storage in the EEPROM will be used to save the configuration data.

You will need a Microsoft Windows PC and an USB cable with micro USB connector for the upgrade process. Press and hold the push button on BLE Mini while connecting it to your PC, it should show a mass storage drive (e.g. E:), then you can release the push button, delete the existing .bin file (e.g. Biscuit.bin or old RBL-iBeacon.bin) and drag the latest MiniBeacon Firmware into the drive.

MiniBeacon can operates under two modes, broadcasting mode or maintenance mode. It will enter broadcasting mode at startup, by default the green LED is ON. It will broadcast iBeacon signal periodically.

Step 2. Switch MiniBeacon to maintenance mode by pressing the button on BLE Mini
The Blue LED on BLE Mini should be ON.

Step 3. Download our sample MiniBeacon App to customize your MiniBeacon
Our sample app will automatically connect to the first MiniBeacon it discovers. You can also customize your MiniBeacon settings using your own codes or third party BLE utility apps.

Characteristics

iBeacon UUID UUID: 0xB0702881-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512D
a unique 16-bytes value in HEX for advertising
Major identity ID UUID: 0xB0702882-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE
a 2-bytes value, ranging from 0 to 65535 (0xFFFF)
Minor identity ID UUID: 0xB0702883-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE
a 2-bytes value, ranging from 0 to 65535 (0xFFFF)
Measured Power UUID: 0xB0702884-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE
a 1-byte signed value, ranging from -100 to 0
Please refer to Apple's AirLocate example about how to obtain Measured Power for your iBeacon https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action?name=WWDC iOS_AirLocate.zip
LED Switch UUID: 0xB0702885-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE
a 1-byte value used to control the on-board green LED, either OFF (0x00) or ON (0x01)
default is ON
Advertising Interval UUID: 0xB0702886-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE
a 2-bytes value, ranging from 100ms (0x0064) to 10000ms (0x2710) on a incremental of 5ms unit
default is 250ms
Output Power UUID: 0xB0702887-A295-A8AB-F734-031A98A512DE
a 1-byte value, four available settings: -23dBm (0x00), -6dBm (0x01), 0dBm (0x02) or 4dBm (0x03)
default is 0dBm