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by karthikv 4648 days ago
This gigaom post has more details on iBeacon: http://gigaom.com/2013/09/10/with-ibeacon-apple-is-going-to-...
2 comments

iBeacon’s range is 50 meters (typical Bluetooth range), or 2,500 square meters.

That's some weird antenna right there. Assuming it's omnidirectional with a 50m range (radius) then it would cover more like 7,800 square meters.

The range of Estimote’s beacons is 50 meters, but the recommended range is 10 meters. If you go with the recommendation, you need 1 Estimote beacon for every 100 square meters.

More like 314 square meters.

> 2,500 square meters

I'm not sure it's a weird antenna. Looks like the author took 50^2 (square with edge length 50 m) instead of \pi 50^2 (the traditional interpretation of 50 m range).

> > you need 1 Estimote beacon for every 100 square meters.

> More like 314 square meters.

But you can't pack circles tightly -- you have to use hexagonal cells.

Hmm, reading that after the estimote pages makes it seem that the gigaom post is just guerrilla marketing for estimote, that's trying to hijack the Apple publicity.

Have Apple actually stated anything public other than the word "iBeacon"?

Googling around I just find the same rewritten PR material all about estimote, not iBeacon specifically.

Hey, this is Jakub from Estimote.

We have been working on wireless Bluetooth Smart beacons long before Apple made it part of their Core Location API and called iBeacon.

If you would like to learn more about Apple iBeacon you could check it here: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreLo...

Our API and BLE beacons in general are explained here: http://www.estimote.com/api