Yes, we have own R&D team to provide the OEM and ODM customization services to customers. More than 40 experienced engineers are good at schematic design, PCB layout, firmware and software development, mechanical industry ID design and cloud platform development.

Yes, Minew would like to print client’s logo on beacons.

Beacon is a tiny device with a massive impact on advertising. A beacon is designed with three major components – a small ARM computer, a Bluetooth Smart connectivity module and batteries for powering the entire circuit. The CPU of the ARM computer has an antenna attached to it, which broadcasts electromagnetic waves with specific length and frequency.

To understand how beacons work let’s take an example of a coffee shop with beacon deployment.

Let’s assume, beacons are deployed at the entrance of a coffee shop

These beacons transmit signals in its range. The range of beacons vary from 20m to 300m.

Smartphones in the range of beacons is itself indicating that the smartphones are nearby.

The smartphone then sends the ID number attached to the signal to the cloud server

The server responds with the action linked to the beacon ID. It could be a notification introducing a new appetizer in the cafe, combo deals, video of coffee making or a feedback form!

These notifications drive customers to a webpage, a form, a phone number or whatever you plan to do.

Deploy beacons => smartphone detects BLE signal => ID number sent to cloud server => Server responds accordingly => Assigned notification displayed => Beacon notification drivers sales

It is important to understand the difference between classic Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy to appreciate BLE beacons. Classic Bluetooth consumes high power and transmits to long ranges, which is suited for Bluetooth headsets and speakers.

However, Bluetooth Low Energy transmits less data over a smaller range, hence consuming much less power. BLE beacons transfers small amounts of data at regular intervals of time.

A beacon is a small Bluetooth radio transmitter, powered by batteries. Beacons are similar to a lighthouse in functionality. These small hardware devices incessantly transmit Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signals. The Bluetooth enabled smartphones are capable of scanning and displaying these signals.

Beacons could be deployed on store-fronts, real estate properties, amusement parks, events and other public venues to broadcast contextually-relevant advertisements and notifications.

As a business owner or a marketer, you can kickstart your ibeacon-based proximity marketing infrastructure in a couple of ways：

Buy iBeacon compliant beacon hardware from a vendor

The beacon market is flooded with vendors selling iBeacon compliant beacons. Most of these vendors also provide a software to manage the fleet of beacons – monitor battery status, transmission range etc.

Once you buy these beacons, the next step is to build a platform that enables you to create campaigns, notifications and lets you assign them to the beacon. This obviously requires extensive development efforts. Given the resource limitations that most small and medium businesses have, this is not the most cost-effective way to set-up an iBeacon campaign.

Invest in an end-to-end beacon solution

Alternatively, investing in an end-to-end beacon solution that includes, hardware, an app to manage and monitor the hardware, platform to create campaigns and monitor the performance of the campaign, is much more cost-effective.

The average cost of an iBeacon compliant beacon is USD 10. The cost of iBeacon compliant beacons depends on the manufacturer, the transmission range (or the signal range) and the form factor of the beacon. If you choose to purchase beacons in bulk, the price significantly reduces.

On average iBeacon beacons transmit up to 50 meters or 164 feet. However, some forms of beacons, like long-range beacons transmit as far as 500 metres or 1640 feet. Depending on the use case, different beacons can be deployed.

Here’s a list of iBeacon compliant beacons with their corresponding transmission ranges and other deciding factors like battery life, recommended use cases and cost.