In this demo we have positioned four Estimote beacons on the ceiling of our office to create four zones. We have developed an iPhone app to determine the current zone we are in based on the received signal strength from the beacons.
The app takes a reading of the received signal strength of any detected beacons each second. Each beacon has a buffer of 10 readings. Each new reading goes onto the top of the stack and the oldest is removed from the bottom. We use each beacon’s buffer to derive a signal strength score (for now this is a simple average), and the strongest signal wins.
There are many refinements we can make, such as flushing the buffers when movement is detected, but it nicely demonstrates the principle of how beacons can be used within a reasonably small area.