New BeaconFence component http://blog.marcocantu.com/blog/2015-july-beaconfence.html

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New BeaconFence component http://blog.marcocantu.com/blog/2015-july-beaconfence.html
http://blog.marcocantu.com/blog/2015-july-beaconfence.html

Comments

  1. Rafael Ribas AguilóJuly 28, 2015 at 10:40 AM

    An interesting one would be a phone simulating a beacon. Since it is just a radio frequence, why not to have it?

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  2. Marco CantùJuly 28, 2015 at 10:48 AM

    Well, not that simple without OS support. Android has Beacon transmission support, but only in very recent releases. iOS lacks the feature.

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  3. Paul ThorntonJuly 28, 2015 at 2:06 PM

    I like the idea, but I don't like the licencing. It's extremely hard to manage "pay per use" components when you are selling software to multiple customers. We are very happy to pay for good quality third party components, but not every time we make a sale.

    To make things worse, when you check out the product page you're told to contact the sales department for pricing. Why? How hard is it to just publish the prices on the web page?

    I really hope this isn't the direction Embarcadero will be going with components in the future.

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  4. Marco CantùJuly 28, 2015 at 2:43 PM

    Paul Thornton I think the prices will be available publicly soon, there is nothing secret. The idea is to try avoid overcharging for the component for casual users, and move the payments to the deployment, rather than even before development starts. The pricing is basically by square footage of the target location. This is a type of application you'll have to customize for each target location / user, more than a general software solution.

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  5. Roland KossowJuly 28, 2015 at 3:07 PM

    Marco Cantù I really hope there have not been ressources pulled from fixing RAD Studio issues for this component development ... but I have to admit the component looks very interesting :-)

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  6. G FletcherJuly 28, 2015 at 11:49 PM

    The component looks interesting but two things immediately come to mind:
    1. Pricing model - Painful 
    2. Development - As Roland mentioned I hope EMB is not using up resources that should be used to improve and debug Rad studio. I think EMB should concentrate more on their core products before that coming up with all sorts of third party products.

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  7. Lars FosdalJuly 29, 2015 at 1:18 PM

    Where can I find info on the beacon and locator hardware?

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  8. Roland KossowJuly 29, 2015 at 3:18 PM

    Hi Lars Fosdal ...

    I used this one with success...
    http://www.lintech.de/produkt/bluetooth-low-energy-beacon/

    They provide prototyping kits and do - at least I think - oem if you want to develop your own hadware ...

    contact is ...

    lindner@lintech.de

    I discovered a less expensive beacon (which only worked with iBeacon for me and I did not thoroughly test it) by this chinese provider ...

    www.oemblue.com 

     no idea if they provide beacons in small amounts for a competitive price ... very helpful contact is ...
    Mrs...

    dora@oemblue.com

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  9. Roland KossowJuly 29, 2015 at 3:18 PM

    The hardware for locating was my mobile (Samsung S4) - I am not aware of any locator gadgets ... please post here if you find out.

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  10. Marco CantùJuly 29, 2015 at 4:14 PM

    Lars Fosdal The locator can be any iOS or Android phone, with Bluetooth LE. That's the nice thing about beacons, any mobile app can receive information from them at no cost. Beacons are still a little expensive, but pricing are coming down very fast, it seems.

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  11. G FletcherJuly 30, 2015 at 6:34 AM

    I can recommend beacons from this company.  www.emmicroelectronic.com
    Been doing some testing with them.  Tried the cheaper Chinese ones and found them to be a bit unreliable.

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  12. Marco CantùJuly 30, 2015 at 4:24 PM

    These are the vendors we are in touch with and we have done tests with their beacons:

    * Estimote
    * Radius Networks
    * BLE Home
    * EM Microelectronic

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  13. Lars FosdalJuly 30, 2015 at 10:39 PM

    I need a Windows locator to be able to determine truck position in warehouse.

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  14. Marco CantùJuly 31, 2015 at 7:04 AM

    So you have the beacons moving, rather than the device? Well, you could always use a mobile device and use AppTethering to shuffle the info into a VCL app... or try using the WinRT Apis to handle beacons, but I know this is quite a complex task.

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  15. Lars FosdalJuly 31, 2015 at 7:20 AM

    The beacons would fence in production pickup areas, loading bays, shelve areas, etc.
    The truck (which is running an industrial Windows PC - Windows 7) would need to be able to locate it's position in the same way that the iOS or Android device does.

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  16. Marco CantùJuly 31, 2015 at 7:27 AM

    I see. Well, if it is running Windows 7, there is no way AFAIK. Unless you can justify (in terms of costs) having a small external mobile device attached to it. That could act as a beacon receiver, the same way an RFID received would (but much cheaper). Letting this device communicate with the industrial PC should be easy.

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  17. Lars FosdalJuly 31, 2015 at 7:42 AM

    We are currently testing Windows Surface Pro 3 for the dry/cool storage spaces - as we can break 7-8 of those for the price of one industrial PC :P
    Will the SP3/Win3 have what it takes?
    Adding another device is not optimal as more cabling = more stuff that can fail.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Marco CantùJuly 31, 2015 at 8:00 AM

    Makes sense. Beacons support was just added to Windows 10, there is no Win32 (or even classic .NET) API for it. Only WinRT. We have interfaces for WinRT, but some of the areas are a bit tricky, so the plan is to explore this in the coming months. I've seen very little from Microsoft about this support, not sure how complete and reliable it will be.

    ReplyDelete

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