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Beacons

  • 28-11-2016 7:53am
    #1
    jester77
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,264 ✭✭✭✭


    Anyone doing anything smart at home with beacons?

    I've played around with them in the office to confirm meeting room bookings when you enter and to free the room when you leave.

    Any inspiring ideas for the home, apart from turning on/off lights!


Comments

  • #2
    wexfordman2
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,557 ✭✭✭wexfordman2


    jester77 wrote: »
    Anyone doing anything smart at home with beacons?

    I've played around with them in the office to confirm meeting room bookings when you enter and to free the room when you leave.

    Any inspiring ideas for the home, apart from turning on/off lights!

    Need a bit more info, any links etc?


  • #3
    jester77
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,264 ✭✭✭✭jester77


    wexfordman2 wrote: »
    Need a bit more info, any links etc?

    A beacon is just a tiny bluetooth device that emits regular heartbeats. Once you pick up the heartbeat you can react on it to do something. A very simple idea would be to put a beacon somewhere in a room and once you walk in you would trigger the lights to turn on.

    Estimote would be one of the more popular beacons.


  • #4
    Atomic Pineapple
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,272 ✭✭✭✭Atomic Pineapple


    Never thought of beacons for home automation actually but gonna pick a few up now and see what I can do with them.

    I was thinking of getting the Hue Motion sensor but this would be a much cheaper way to get the same functionality throughout the house.


  • #5
    Graham
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,643 Mod ✭✭✭✭Graham


    Good for presence detection using Bluetooth.

    E.g. when phone X detects beacon A then do ........
    or when Beacon B detects Beacon C then......

    Kontakt.io are another major Beacon provider.

    Worth considering what you want to use them with as there's two competing standards at the moment, iBeacon (Apple) and Eddystone (Google). Probably no need to explain which ones work better with iOS/Android. Some of the newer beacons can be switched between iBeacon/Eddystone, even newer (more expensive ones) should be able to transmit both.

    Kontakt have a neat card beacon on the market now, not much thicker than a credit card. Should open up some interesting possibilities.

    Some of the beacons have additional sensors to detect heat/light/movement which might be of interest for HA purposes.

    It's worth pointing out that (generally) beacons transmit rather than receive so you'll need a Bluetooth enabled phone/app to detect the beacons and do something. One exception to this is Kontakt.io who have a Daddy-Beacon (can't remember the name) that connects to WiFi and can listen to any other Kontakt beacons within range. Newer Apple TV models have some BlueTooth functionality that I'm guessing will work with iBeacons.


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