RFID has been a forerunner in asset tracking and monitoring for years, though it had many limitations in terms of implementation as well as operations. But over the last few years, asset tracking has seen a paradigm shift with arrival of new technologies like iBeacon and UWB, which have upgraded the process of asset tracking and monitoring giving more effective and accurate results.
We will be discussing more about iBeacon asset tracking in this blog post and see how and why iBeacon technology is more effective and accurate when it comes to tracking your valuable assets.
Implementation
The biggest advantage with iBeacon asset tracking is that its implementation is independent of your existing IT infrastructure, means the whole system can run without any interference in your existing network. iBeacon tags or devices which are used for tagging your assets use BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and are powered with replaceable batteries and do not require any network or power connection. These tags are read by specific readers and apps which are programmed to send you alerts or notifications. So basically setting up BLE asset tracking would only take few days depending on your assets
Geolocation
In case of iBeacon, the geolocation works both indoors as well as outdoors and gives you unprecedented accuracy where you can track an asset in range of less a meter. The accuracy of tracking using beacons can be significantly increased by increasing number of Beacons. iBeacons are most effective when it comes to indoor tracking for assets as well as personnel also.
Operations
Since iBeacon technology is self-dependent and does not have any dependency on your IT infrastructure (apart from internet for data transfer), its operational cost is quite low as compared to other technologies or methods of asset tracking. On top of that, cost of Beacons is quite low as compared to other technologies, thus keeping your overall implementation and operational costs on lower side.
BLE asset tracking has been quite successful in various industries including construction, healthcare, hospitality, retail and many more. Apart from assets, it can be successfully used to track employees in indoor premises for better safety and security.
We will cover more about iBeacon Asset Tracking in our next article. Keep reading and following us for more information articles on IoT technologies and how these are impacting business processes.
