Virtual Bluetooth LE (vBLE) technology

What Is virtual Bluetooth LE (vBLE) technology?

Understanding vBLE is facilitated by a prior comprehension of Bluetooth® and Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE) technologies. Bluetooth serves as a wireless communication technology primarily employed for short-range connections between devices, enabling wireless headsets, keyboards, mice, and hands-free systems to communicate with smartphones and computers. Like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, BLE operates within the 2.4 GHz band, establishing a personal-area network for connecting devices. However, BLE conserves power by remaining dormant until a connection is initiated.

Virtual Bluetooth LE (vBLE) enhances BLE capabilities by introducing a patented technology for indoor location-based services. It employs virtual beacons instead of physical ones to precisely and cost-effectively locate devices equipped with BLE sensors. This is accomplished through a patented 16-element directional antenna array that emits unique RF energy in multiple directions. Signals from vBLE-enabled Wi-Fi or Bluetooth access points eliminate the requirement for physically mounted, battery-powered BLE beacons across a location. Instead, location service applications utilize data from the virtualized BLE beacons and an AI/ML engine to accurately calculate the locations of mobile devices.

This approach enables businesses to deliver real-time location-based experiences to customers and employees in a cost-effective, engaging, accurate, and scalable manner.

What challenges does vBLE address?

Virtual Bluetooth Low Energy (vBLE) addresses the cost and operational challenges associated with deploying large-scale physical BLE networks. Traditional beaconing technology requires the installation of numerous battery-powered devices, such as transmitters, which pose the following IT burdens:

• Extensive site surveys are needed to arrange and calibrate beacons for optimal performance and accuracy in each setting. This is essential both during initial deployment and continuously thereafter, as any environmental changes necessitate a new site survey and recalibration. This is due to the impact of RF signals by physical changes in the environment. Such changes can lead to poor performance of location services until the physical beacons are recalibrated.

• Risk of theft and damage. Battery-powered beacons are susceptible to theft or damage, adding further management complexity.

• High deployment expenses. Many scenarios require thousands of physical beacons in a single location to ensure adequate coverage, creating significant cost barriers.

• Battery management is problematic. Despite advancements in battery life, a large enterprise may deploy tens of thousands of beacons globally, making locating and replacing dead batteries complex and challenging as the deployment expands.

• Aesthetic concerns. Battery-powered beacons are often affixed to walls, spaced approximately 25 feet apart. This can negatively impact the appearance of a location, particularly in venues like hotels, museums, and other settings where aesthetics are crucial.

• Lack of IP addresses for physical beacons. Consequently, they cannot be identified by the network or managed remotely by IT.

Advantages of vBLE’s

Virtualized wireless beaconing technology facilitates ongoing, real-time, and scalable mobile location calculations, providing the following benefits to businesses:

• Enhanced accuracy in locating BLE-enabled devices.

• Improved user experience with location-based services like real-time navigation, asset tracking, and proximity messaging/marketing.

• Increased efficiency and revenue through better allocation and management of people and assets within a facility.