Fujitsu Component has released a portfolio of beacons for indoor navigation, asset management, and advertising applications, employing Nordic’s Bluetooth Low Energy nRF51822 System-on-Chip (SoC).
The FUJITSU Component Beacon, compliant with Apple iBeacon and Google Eddystone formats for basic advertising applications; and the FUJITSU Sensor Embedded Beacon, available in three models all offering an embedded accelerometer and temperature sensor to track the beacons’ exact movements and to provide the user with environmental feedback.
One model also provides additional datalogging functionality, employing the nRF51822 SoC’s generous 32kB RAM to store approximately 68 hours of data at 60 second intervals, or 42 days of data at 15 minute intervals. Another product offers beacon embedded software for bidirectional communication with the enmo development platform.
All beacons come in a robust and compact 40 by 31 by 12mm form factor and can be easily attached to a specific location or object to provide contextually relevant ‘microlocation’ based content to a user’s Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphone or tablet, thanks to the Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity provided by the nRF51822 SoC. The ultra low power operating characteristics of the Nordic SoC extend the beacons’ single CR2450 coin cell battery life to more than two years.
Fujitsu provides users with a smartphone or tablet application and Windows-based tool for beacon programming and simple text-based command configuration. Setting and advertising data can be updated via over-the-air (OTA) functionality. The beacons also offer an on/off switch, as well as a slide switch to enable and disable beacon functions for security purposes. Beacon status can be checked via an LED indicator.
Nordic’s nRF51822 is a powerful and flexible multiprotocol SoC ideally suited for Bluetooth LE and 2.4GHz ultra low-power wireless applications. It is built around a 32-bit ARM Cortex M0 CPU, 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio, and 256kB/128kB Flash and 32kB/16kB RAM. The SoC is supplied with Nordic’s S130 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 4.2 qualified concurrent multi-link protocol stack solution supporting simultaneous Central/Peripheral/Broadcaster/Observer role connections.
Fujitsu is also developing a new generation of beacons based on Nordic’s nRF52 Series SoCs with embedded sensors, energy harvesting solutions, and running the Wirepas scalable decentralized radio communications protocol for beacon management.
