Do the beacons/estimote api have an incremental counter built in?

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1

For example if I move my phone within 5 cm of the beacon the distance is accurate.

Then if I quickly move the phone (at walking pace) about 1 meter away it gives the following distance values:

5, 15, 23,32,44,56,64,75,83,95,102, 108, 101 etc.. before eventually steadying out.

I need this to to be instant, is there anyway to do this? As this takes about 20 seconds..

Cheers, Stu

2

Hi!

Thanks for your question.

Distance accuracy heavily depends on the proximity between a phone and a beacon. It's much better within a short distance and deteriorates together with bigger distances.

In order to help you get a better sense of the deviation, we have tested different distances to find:
• Distance of 20 cm: deviation is 5-6 cm
• Distance of 1 m: deviation is 15 cm
• Distance greater than 10 m: deviation is 2-3 m

You can read more about it here:
https://community.estimote.com/hc/en-us/articles/201029223-RSSI-Range-Zones-Trilateration-and-Distance-Accuracy

3

Hi Ola, thanks for the quick response!

I understand there a deviation and a lot of objects interfere with the signal.

The problem I have is the distances seem to increment.

For example... If I move the iPhone from 5cm to 100cm away from the beacon very quickly the following distances are output:

5, 16, 24, 38, 49, 57, 63, 74, 89, 92, 104, 102, 98...

How come it doesn't go 5cm -> 92cm, why does it have all the numbers in between?

Is there are counter of some sort?

Cheers, Stu

4

Hi Stuart,

If we take into account that the move of yours takes around 1-2 sec and the adv. interval is set to100ms it is possible that your smartphone saves the additional values before you get to 92cm.

Please try increasing the adv. interval and check the results.

Cheers,

5

Thanks! I think that explains it.

I will carry out some testing with the different advertising intervals to find which is best for my project!

Cheers, Stu