Estimote Stickers are not getting scanned by iphones (5S and 6Plus) at 2-3m or greater

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1

Configuration:

1) Devices:
– Samsung Galaxy S5(H/W), Android (OS)
– iPhone 5S(H/W), iOS 8. (OS)
– iPhone +(H/W), iOS 8. (OS)

2) Estimote Sticker
– Tx Power - (-12dbm)

Case: (Beacon suitable environment, without any obstruction)
We used Estimote Sticker as a wearable beacon, with devices (iPhone 5S, iPhone 6Plus and Android-S5 ) in hand. This test was conducted at a distance of up to 10m.
Devices were at fixed location and estimote stickers were movable from 1m to 10m, and they were moved gradually at 1m distance interval by spending 5 minutes at one location.
Output:

  • Android scanned the Estimote Sticker properly, where Sticker moved from 1m to 10m.
  • For iPhone 5S, it scanned Estimote Sticker up to 2m only, and in most of the cases, proximity came out to be Unknown.
  • For iPhone 6+, it scanned Estimote Sticker up to 3m only, and ||ly in most of the cases, proximity was Unknown.

By analyzing Android scanned results, we thought to make this beacon final to use it for our business. But iPhone results put the Est Sticker down.

Any response from Estimote team would be highly appreciated. Please update me asap.

2

Interesting. Can you share the RSSI values that the Android device is reporting when the sticker already disappears from iPhones’ range? We know that different iOS devices have different sensitivity to Bluetooth signals, generally the newer the better—which makes it surprising that iPhone 6 Plus also doesn’t discover the sticker at greater distances.

Does this happen with all of your stickers or just one?

3

RSSI received by Android device was -99 at 3m when iPhone 6 Plus stopped discovering the Sticker.
And the average RSSI value gets decreased gradually by increasing the distance, like at 4m avg RSSI was -100.

We tried this test with 4-5 Stickers individually, but iPhone stopped discovering them (other Stickers with same TX Power ~ -12 dbm) at range of 1-2m. Some of them did not even get discovered at the range of ~0m.
The case we have shared is the best case tested by us.