We’ve also cut the price of our current generation of beacons, now called Proximity Beacons. You can buy a dev kit of 3 Proximity Beacons for $59. These are still being shipped daily.
Does the accelerometer inside the Beacons let us know the acceleration on 3 axis or only if the beacon is moving?
In the Telemetry packet, you get:
raw readings on all 3 axis
binary “moving or not”
if the beacon is moving, for how long, and how long it previously was motionless
if the beacon is not moving, for how long, and how long it previously was in motion
Is the Indoor Location available for Android??
Unfortunately, not yet. This is more about the Android ecosystem itself (lots of devices each with different Bluetooth characteristics) than our beacon hardware. However, we’re exploring a few options on how to bring Indoor Location to Android, so stay tuned!
What are the changes introduced by the new SDK 4.0 for Android?? And where can I find it? I can’t find it on github.
We’re still putting final polish on the updated iOS and Android SDKs for the new beacons. These SDKs will be fully compatible with the current versions, and will simply add support for connecting to and configuring the new beacons and parsing the new packets (Estimote Telemetry, etc.)
I am some more questions. Will they be compatible with old beacons, meaning will they can be used simultaneous with each other?
Absolutely. The Location Beacons and the Proximity Beacons are both fully compatible with iBeacon and Eddystone standards, so any iBeacon/Eddystone code you have today will continue to work with the Location Beacons.
I would like to buy the new Location beacons kit for trying indoor location navigation demo.
Are you shipping them now? I saw its still mentioned as pre-order.
We’re currently gathering pre-orders, but we’ll start shipping in about 2 weeks, so it won’t be long! (:
Please remember we’re shipping on a first-come-first-served basis, and we already have a small backlog, so the sooner you place your pre-order, the sooner you’ll get your Location Beacons!
Luckily, because Location Beacons (“new”) broadcast the very same iBeacon and Eddystone packets that Proximity Beacons (“current”) do, the older SDKs will detect them just fine.
You only need to use the new SDKs if you:
want to detect any of the new packets (Estimote Location, Estimote Telemetry, more about these here)
want to connect to and configure the Location Beacons from your app
The Xamarin components are not developed by us, so you might want to ping the maintainer to learn if they’re planning to updater their bindings. (And if you do, feel free to share here, for the rest of the Estimote community to know as well .)
Just ordered the location beacon dev kit!
There’s a note in the indoor location sdk that says needs 4 beacons, but the new locaiton beacon dev kit has 3 beacons. Will I be able to dev indoor location apps using the location beacon dev kit?
Glad to hear that, I’m sure you’ll love them! Let us know any and all feedback, any ideas and use cases you have for them, etc. (you can hit me up directly at: piotr@estimote.com)
Indoor Location requires a minimum of one beacon per wall, and more in bigger rooms, in order to achieve the promised 1 m accuracy. You can, however, still map a space with just three beacons via the Indoor SDK, here’s a guide:
Once you map your room with just 3 beacons, I’d recommend to switch to the Indoor Light mode:
And later if it turns out your use case really requires the best possible accuracy, just ping us, and we’ll be happy to get you more beacons at a great price!
The Location Beacons w/ UWB are currently a separate product, priced at $159, and with 4 beacons in a kit. You can pre-order them at estimote.com/uwb, and we expect to start shipping by the end of Q1.
The Long-Range Location Beacons is the latest, immediately available generation—they don’t have UWB, come in packs of 3, cost $99, you can order them at http://estimote.com/#location-beacons, and you should get them within a week.
I am developing a project where we would like a Location Beacon to switch on and off in response to an external switch. Can we use the GPIO to power up and power down the device?
In other words, the beacon will be dead or sleeping until the switch is activated. It will switch on when the switch is activated, and will go dead again when the switch is turned off.
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Let us know any and all feedback, any ideas and use cases you have for them, etc. (you can hit me up directly at: