WLAN Vendors With Proximity Beacon / iBeacon Integration

My conference speaker topic for 2015 CWNP IT Professional Wi-Fi Trek National Conference on September 28th at 8am is “Wi-Fi Engineer’s Guide to Proximity Beacons (iBeacons)”.

More info about conference is below.

CWNP IT Professional Wi-Fi Trek Conference focuses on continuing education, networking, and making the most out of your relationship with CWNP. Attendees, speakers, and partners are among the most innovative leaders in the industry who come together to connect and share ideas. This conference is built around sharing information with others. This will allow attendees to take back new knowledge for immediate implementation and growth within their industry and career.

The talk will include how proximity beacons work, impact on 2.4GHz WiFi, and how to use mobile applications to test and plan out proximity beacon solutions. I will use a new app called SoftBeacon made by AccessAgility to demonstrate various proximity beacon use cases.

In preparation for my talk I researched various WLAN vendors and their proximity beacon integration offerings. I started with a short list of WLAN vendors based on WLAN market share and documented the software and hardware products available from each vendor related to proximity based solutions.

1. Cisco Systems
2. HP/Aruba Networks
3. Ruckus Wireless
4. Zebra (Motorola/Symbol)

Cisco Systems

Hardware: Cisco Hyperlocation Module – “Cisco Hyperlocation is an ultraprecise location solution that attaches to the back of your Cisco Aironet® 3700 and 3600 Series wireless access points. It combines Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technologies to pinpoint beacons, inventory, and personal mobile devices. While some other networks use multiple access points to get location coordinates within 5 to 7 meters of accuracy, Cisco Hyperlocation can track locations to within a single meter.”

Software: Use CleanAir to monitor, detect, locate, and report on Bluetooth devices as interferers. Use MSE to categorize BLE devices. Use Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) for analytics.

Meraki

Hardware: Meraki MR32 and MR72 APs include integrated BLE technology.

Software: Meraki dashboard can scan for Bluetooth devices and also allows iBeacon transmitter capability. As of Sept 2015 only a single iBeacon UUID, Major, Minor can be transmitted for an entire network of access points.

HP/Aruba Networks

Hardware: dual coin-cell powered Aruba beacon, USB powered Aruba beacon, Aruba Access Points with USB port.

Software: Meridian mobile app platform –
Meridian Editor – Cloud-based content management system that serves as the online hub for Meridian-powered tools.
AppMaker – A module in the Meridian Editor that lets you build a mobile app for your venue.
Mapping and self-guided wayfinding – Meridian feature that lets venues incorporate location- specific mapping and turn-by-turn directions into their Meridian-powered mobile app.
SDKs – Tools to add mapping and wayfinding (NavKit), indoor positioning on a map (BluDotKit), and proximity-based notifications (ZoneKit) to an existing app built by a third-party developer.
Aruba Location Services – Products that connect to sources of mobile device positioning data, such as Aruba Beacons powered by Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), that make a Meridian app location-aware.

Ruckus Wireless

Hardware: Gimbal USB beacons, Ruckus ZoneFlex R710 indoor access point (AP) and ZoneFlex H500 wall switch now support Gimbal as well as iBeacon technology with Ruckus SmartZone and ZoneDirector Controllers.

Software: “Ruckus Smart Positioning Technology (SPoT™) LBS provides key data, such as footfall traffic visualization via heat-map by zone, floor, and venue. Ruckus SPoT LBS can be deployed as a cloud-subscription service, or as Virtual SPoT, a virtualized instance of SPoT deployed on-premises or in a customer’s data center for a without any reoccurring costs.”

Zebra

Hardware: coin-cell powered beacon, AA battery powered beacon, USB powered beacon.

Software: MPact platform for location analytics and beacon management. “MPact comes with cloud-ready software that aggregates location data from Wi-Fi access points and Bluetooth® Smart beacons, providing insightful analytics on customer visits, as well as visibility into the health of the beacon network. With an HTML5 front end and a ApacheTM Hadoop® backend for big data to crunch through the millions of client end points, this solution is scalable and ready for any IT architecture, from the corporate data center to the private cloud. And our REST Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) provide the ultimate in flexibility, allowing you to access and utilize MPact data in other systems, expanding the reach and the value of the MPact location information.”