It is very important to watch this video to understand what Mist has done with BLE Location. It is our experience that the word “location” means different things to different people. This is not WiFi location and this is not about battery operated beacons.
Google and Apple put their support behind Bluetooth Low-energy wikipedia BLE which makes it the de-facto standard for ‘user engagement’ meaning it will allow a BLE triggered message through the ‘lock screen’ hence people started using battery beacons to experiment with the possibilities.
When you talk about doing anything with beacons you implicitly are talking about getting a mobile app to do something. Many companies have tried this technology as it lets you communicate directly to your customers, but when they realize how daunting managing battery operated beacons would be they usually put the project on the ‘shelf.’
Mist has made this part of your infrastructure. The mobile app can integrate the Mist SDK and now you can place virtual beacons on your floorplan and get the exact experience you would have had with battery beacons without any of the hassles. You can create as many beacons as you need, whenever you want.
Imagine a conference center where when a customer goes to room 101 at 3pm for the Physics lecture and their tablet automatically downloads the slides because a virtual beacon was setup to do that. Then when someone shows up in the same room at 5pm they get the Math slides instead. How did this happen?
- Using the Mist API your management system created a vBeacon in room 101 to last from 3-5pm
- At 5pm that beacon was deleted and a new one pointing to the Math slides was created.
- This was all automated – no one had to manually reprogram a battery operated beacon – ever.
- The entire conference can be pre-programmed and you can spend your time on more interesting projects
Mist is the first company to introduce an enterprise-grade platform for indoor BLE location services with groundbreaking features including a dynamic BLE 16 antenna array integrated into Mist’s Access Points, machine learning in the Mist cloud eliminating the need for expensive site surveys, and patented virtual beacon (vBLE) technology. The Mist architecture is also unique in its ability to both send and receive BLE signals, which makes it ideal for the following BLE services (offered by Mist):
Contextual engagement services, such as wayfinding, alerts, and proximity messaging via BLE
Operational efficiency applications, like asset & people visibility leveraging 3rd party BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy).
All Mist AP’s ship with this array and it can be activated by purchasing the engagement subscription and/or asset visibility.
With Mist Location technology we offer:
- User Engagement
- Mist flipped the indoor location model on its head. With patented virtual Bluetooth LE (vBLE), indoor location is finally easy to deploy and scale, with unprecedented accuracy and agility
- Real-time Wayfinding
- Help employees, guests and customers get to where they need to be with turn-by-turn directions. Enable wayfinding with high accuracy and sub-second latency.
- Real-time Proximity Notification and Alerts
- Greet patients, clients or customers as they arrive onsite.
- Create push notifications anywhere with unlimited virtual beacons.
- Deliver contextually relevant messages anywhere for a personalized mobile experience