The Blog of Ian Mercer.

iBeacon meetup in Seattle - January 2015

Cover Image for iBeacon meetup in Seattle - January 2015

I attended the iBeacon / Hack Things meetup in Seattle this week. The speakers were:

  • Tanuj Parikh (Estimote - http://estimote.com)
  • Chris Smith (STQRY - http://www.stqry.com)
  • Jason Farnsworth (PointInside - http://www.pointinside.com)

Key takeaways:

​1) QR Codes were ruined forever by a poor end-user experience; iBeacon developers need to make sure they don't repeat those mistakes. The user-opt-in approach taken by iBeacons will help prevent that but if iBeacon powered Apps simply pop up the same adverts every time you walk in a store they will suffer the same fate.

​2) iBeacons are better than QR Codes or NFC tags because the user doesn't have to perform a physical action (tap / scan), they can just walk close by.

​3) iBeacons transmit just three key pieces of information: a UUID, a major number and a minor number. Phones use very little power waiting for beacons to come into range and can then launch apps that have registered for specific values. It's all totally consensual: the user has to have the app, the app has to know what beacons connect to it.

Apps for beacons need to be context aware. They should offer more than simple web-site-like interactions

​4) Chris talked about examples of museums using their software with beacons to display information about exhibits. Rather than storyboarding a single museum web site or app a better approach is to create an App that understands far more about the user's context: one view for at home planning a visit; another view as you approach showing you where to park; another as you approach the ticket desk; specific exhibit information as you walk around and when you get home a summary of all the exhibits where you lingered.

Beacons enable apps to offer right-place, right-time information to users

​5) The right-place, right-time capabilities of iBeacons are really important. For example, an airline app detecting that you are in-line for check-in to an international flight might remind you to have your passport out and ready. The benefit to the consumer is shorter lines, the airline can process people more quickly.

​6) Jason talked about testing they have done inside large stores (no names mentioned but the layout looked like a large Target store). They took a surveyors wheel, attached a hall-effect sensor and wheel it around the store collecting data. Beacons were placed on end-caps and on shelving units. Combining beacon readings with accelerometer, compass and other sensors they calculate where in the store they think you are. Overall the software does well but there are areas away from shelves where it's harder to pinpoint where the user is standing.

a ceiling mounted solution may be preferable

​7) People and shelves block signals (Jason), beacons go missing (Chris): a ceiling mounted solution may be preferable to solve both issues, but the glue needs to be right so they don't fall off or stick so strongly that they can never be removed. Museums apparently don't like beacons dropping off onto priceless antiquities.

​8) Hospitals are using iBeacons, partly for consumer-facing uses but primarily for 'back office' applications. Some are attaching iBeacons to mobile equipment like xray machines that can be wheeled around. I imaging locating these is hard since you don't have a sensor network everywhere to track them. I was planning on attaching some iBeacons to our cars so I could track them but using our phones as the sensors and some simple reasoning: i.e. a phone running my app is near the Audi and near the house so the Audi is at home.

​9) Sensors have limited battery life - replacing 5,000 batteries in a retail chain is problematic - you all know what it's like to manage just a few smoke detectors - imagine that x1,000. However in 2-3 years time technology will have moved on and you are likely to be replacing them with something else so don't worry about it. That was the advice given. I guess we have to hope that in 2-3 years time we'll have energy harvesting beacons that don't need battery changes, but essentially this means that whatever you install today will likely end up in the landfill in 2018.

​10) Managing large networks of beacons is itself something for which you'll need a system.

​11) Security is an issue (Estimote has a UUID rotating scheme now to address this). Imagine a successful app for restaurant bookings and payments. A competitor could come in and use their same beacons. On the other hand, maybe beacons should be considered more of a public utility, allowing anyone to trigger their app off the beacons in a restaurant. It seems like this could go two ways: (i) competing networks of beacons such that each restaurant has a whole wall covered in them; (ii) syndicates of companies working together on sharing beacons; (iii) public utility beacons.

Overall this was a very informative meeting, lots to think about as I implement my own ideas for beacons in home automation scenarios.

Related Stories

Cover Image for Time Series Data Compression

Time Series Data Compression

This new technique to compress the time series data collected by my home automation system seems to be working really well.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Home Automation

Home Automation

I've been working on home automation for over 15 years and I'm close to achieving my goal which is a house that understands where everyone is at all times, can predict where you are going next and can control lighting, heating and other systems without you having to do or say anything. That's a true "smart home".

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Bluetooth Tracking Project

Bluetooth Tracking Project

My year long Bluetooth project that won the $20,000 HCI and Microsoft competition during lockdown has continued to grow and now reliably tracks how many people are in the house and outside and can locate any device down to room level.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Digital Twins are never identical

Digital Twins are never identical

Digital Twin are an online representation of a real world object, a copy of its properties in the digital world and a way to send updated and commands to it. In effect I've been making them for years but now they have a trendy name.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Home Automation Sensors

Home Automation Sensors

An overview of the many sensors I've experimented with for home automation including my favorite under-floor strain gauge, through all the usual PIR, beam and contact sensors to some more esoteric devices like an 8x8 thermal camera.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Why smarthomes are hard

Why smarthomes are hard

Why automated learning is hard for a smart home. The perils of over-fitting, under-fitting and how the general unpredictable nature of life makes it hard to build a system that learns your behavior.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Collinearity test for sensor data compression

Collinearity test for sensor data compression

One way to reduce the volume of sensor data is to remove redundant points. In a system with timestamped data recorded on an irregular interval we can achieve this by removing co-linear points.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Bluetooth Sensing for Home Automation

Bluetooth Sensing for Home Automation

Bluetooth sensing for home automation is a great proxy for people counting as it can detect and locate each cellphone in the house. iBeacons attached to tools, cars and pets can provide a 'find my anything' feature too.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Event blocks

Event blocks

Home automation systems need to respond to events in the real world. Sometimes it's an analog value, sometimes it's binary, rarely is it clean and not susceptible to problems. Let's discuss some of the ways to convert these inputs into actions.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Logistic function - convert values to probabilities

Logistic function - convert values to probabilities

Another super useful function for handling sensor data and converting to probabilities is the logistic function 1/(1+e^-x). Using this you can easily map values onto a 0.0-1.0 probability range.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for ATAN curve for probabilities

ATAN curve for probabilities

In a home automation system we often want to convert a measurement into a probability. The ATAN curve is one of my favorite curves for this as it's easy to map overything onto a 0.0-1.0 range.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Home Construction Advice

Home Construction Advice

Several years ago we did a major remodel. I did all of the finish electrical myself and supervised all of the rough-in electrical. I also put in all of the electrical system and water in our barn. I have opinions ...

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for T-Mobile home internet

T-Mobile home internet

I'm testing a T-Mobile Home Internet device as a backup to XFinity and a way to offload half our monthly traffic to avoid the XFinity 1.2TB cap

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Bluetooth

Bluetooth

One of my inventions recently won a $20k global competition for applications that could help in a pandemic. It uses Bluetooth to count people.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Probabilistic Home Automation

Probabilistic Home Automation

A probabilistic approach to home automation models the probability that each room is occupied and how many people are in that room.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Multiple hypothesis tracking

Multiple hypothesis tracking

A statistical approach to understanding which rooms are occupied in a smart house

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for A state machine for lighting control

A state machine for lighting control

An if-this-then-that style rules machine is insufficient for lighting control. This state machine accomplishes 90% of the correct behavior for a light that is controlled automatically and manually in a home automation system.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Home Automation States

Home Automation States

Understanding the many different 'states' a house can have is critical to creating great home automation

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Graphing gigabytes of home automation data with tableau

Graphing gigabytes of home automation data with tableau

Some interesting charts from the gigabytes of data my home automation system produces

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for iBeacons for Home Automation

iBeacons for Home Automation

My investigations into using iBeacons for home automation

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Home Automation Systems as a Graph

Home Automation Systems as a Graph

Using nodes and links to represent a home and all the devices in it

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for N-Gram Analysis of Sensor Events in Home Automation

N-Gram Analysis of Sensor Events in Home Automation

Using n-gram analysis to spot patterns in sensor activations

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Xamarin Forms Application For Home Automation

Xamarin Forms Application For Home Automation

Building a Xamarin Forms application to control my home automation system

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for The Internet of Hubs (and things)

The Internet of Hubs (and things)

Maybe it should be called the Internet of Hubs instead

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Showing home status with just a single RGB LED

Showing home status with just a single RGB LED

Multicolored LEDs can convey a lot of information in a small space

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for A wireless sensor network using Moteino boards

A wireless sensor network using Moteino boards

The diminutive Arduino boards include a powerful transmitter/receiver

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for The home as a user interface

The home as a user interface

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

A RESTful API for sensor data

POSTing data to a home automation system from Arduino devices

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for The Internet of Boilers

The Internet of Boilers

An experiment to measure every aspect of an HVAC / boiler system

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

VariableWithHistory - making persistence invisible, making history visible

A novel approach to adding history to variables in a programming language

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for A Quantified House - My Talk to the Seattle Quantified Self Meetup

A Quantified House - My Talk to the Seattle Quantified Self Meetup

My talk to the Seattle Quantified Self meetup

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Integrating an Android phone into my home automation system

Some new features for my home automation using an Android phone

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for The Internet of Dogs

The Internet of Dogs

Connecting our dog into the home automation

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for GreenGoose Review

GreenGoose Review

A review of the now defunct GreenGoose sensor system

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Home power meters revisited

Home power meters revisited

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Finally got the 1U Atom Server racked up

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Timelapse video using the GoPro HD Hero

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Home Automation Calendar Integration

Home Automation Calendar Integration

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Smart home energy savings - update for 2010

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for A smart power strip

A smart power strip

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for What does a Smart House do at Halloween?

What does a Smart House do at Halloween?

My favorite home automation features for Halloween

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Home Automation Top Features

Home Automation Top Features

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Weather Forecasting for Home Automation

Weather Forecasting for Home Automation

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

I should have created Four Square ...

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for How can I tell if my house is smart?

How can I tell if my house is smart?

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Asian Gadgets

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

A great video explaining the Semantic Web

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Interesting Twitter Posts March 15th-

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Twitter links for Week beginning March 8th

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Home Automation Block Diagram

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Facebook, social gaming and points

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Useful Twitter links Feb 8-Feb 15 2010

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

World's Smartest House Demonstration

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

When will people learn to backup?

A rant about RAID

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Future proof your home with a new conduit system?

Running conduit can be expensive but maybe you don't need one to every room

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Balloon Boy was much ado about nothing - Twitter

Some of the more witty comments on Twitter about the Balloon Boy hoax

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Shortened URLs should be treated like a Codec ...

Expanding URLs would help users decide whether or not to click a link

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Tagging File Systems

Isn't it time we stopped knowing which drive our file is on?

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

WMPnetwk.exe started using 50% of my CPU

Uninstalling Windows Media Player - the end of an era

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Introducing Jigsaw menus

A novel UI for menus that combines a breadcrumb and a menu in one visual metaphor

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Amazon Instance vs Dedicated Server comparison

Some benchmark performance for Amazon vs a dedicated server

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Agile Software Development is Like Sailing

You cannot tack too often when sailing or you get nowhere. Agile is a bit like that.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

AntiVirus Software is the Worst Software!

When your anti-virus software starts stealing your personal data, it's time to remove it!

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

It's all about disk speed

Why disk speed is the most critical aspect for most modern PCs and servers

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Giving up on Internet Explorer

Giving up on Internet Explorer

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for New Home Automation Server

New Home Automation Server

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer

Dell upgrades - a pricey way to go

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for World's Smartest House

World's Smartest House

Over 15 years of experimentation with home automation

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for Preparing for death

Preparing for death

A friend died last year, it wasn't unexpected. He left a lot for his friends to cleanup. Maybe these notes can help someone else prepare better.

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer
Cover Image for World's Smartest House Videos

World's Smartest House Videos

A collection of videos about my smart home efforts

Ian Mercer
Ian Mercer