I have a use case wherein i need to mark presence of people entering a room assuming each device will have a 5-6 digit user identification. I can currently upload the result to the back-end by executing the attendance marking code if it comes under a desired proximity area of the beacon and that has an active internet connection. But what if the user has no internet access? Can the beacons send the data to the server instead?. I came across an option called Ubudu mesh beacons which can make sense in some way. I am more of a front-end JavaScript developer creating this app using Appcelerator Studio and have been using the Ti module available for Estimote beacons currently. Any help appreciated.
I just replied to your question on Stack Overflow (:
In general, I think the caching solution is much, much better than mesh. The latter requires you to:
- get specialized hardware (whereas the “caching” solution will work with beacons from any vendor),
- configure the “gateway” beacon, i.e., have it connected via an USB cable with some computer or other device connected to the Internet (I don’t know how exactly that works, wasn’t able to found any documentation from Ubudu about that),
- bi-directional beacon communication eats up much more of the beacon’s battery than uni-directional, which needs you’ll be needing to replace them more often,
- keep in mind that only one smartphone can be connected to a beacon and transmitting data to it at the time, so if the venue get crowded (e.g., subway station during rush hours?), you might not be able to register everybody,
- you will likely need a dense beacon setup, i.e., every beacon always needs to be in range of at least one another mesh beacon.
Not saying mesh doesn’t have some interesting use cases that make it worth going through all that trouble … But you might want to consider if it’s worth if for your particular use case.