Beacon Hardware Purchasing Guide

To utilize automatic updates in Simple In/Out via Beacons, you'll need Bluetooth hardware to emit the Beacon signal. This page highlights some requirements, and also contains a few links you can use to purchase our preferred Beacon hardware.

If you need instructions for how to program Beacon hardware, check out our article on reprogramming RadBeacon USBs.

Specifications

There are two primary technical requirements you'll need to look out for when purchasing hardware Beacons. 

First, make sure they comply with the iBeacon specification. iBeacon, made popular by Apple, governs how the Beacons broadcast.

Second, make sure that the Beacon consistently powers and produces the signal. This is typically a given, but we have had at least one vendor (Estimote) in the early days whose hardware would occasionally power-cycle and everyone would check out. This is something you can ask the vendor. Or, if you are using a new Beacon vendor, we recommend trying just one Beacon first to make sure it performs as expected before purchasing more.

Recommendations

We recommend RadBeacon USB from Radius Networks. These are the Beacons we've used for years and formerly resold. Our documentation will apply to any Beacon whereby the vendor provides you access to the software to reprogram, but our instructions specifically will be for RadBeacon USB devices.

Sources

The following are some places on the internet you can purchase RadBeacon USB devices. For speed and cost of delivery, we recommend purchasing devices in your country. Do email us if you have a preferred place to purchase in your country that is not in the list below.