uBeacon: Configuration based Beacon tracking

Beacons are small Bluetooth low energy (BLE) signal emitting devices that can transmit data about their location, temperature, motion etc. Various startups have commercialized Beacon based applications, such as for tracking valuable items, micro-location targeting of people, micro payments etc. However, these applications are not customizable beyond the use cases they were designed to serve. We feel that there is a need to build software that would allow users to configure the use of beacon data subject to the requirements of an application context, and to reuse the same set of beacons for some other purpose by just modifying the configuration. In this paper we describe uBeacon, a cloud based service with a web interface that allows users to define configurations that include constraints between beacon signal readers and beacons linked to objects or people. These constraints take the form of rules, such as "Object A should always be within 1m of object/reader B." uBeacon stores these configurations in a database, continuously monitors beacon data from readers, and notifies users via mobile push notifications whenever a rule of a configuration has been violated. We report the results of a pilot study with a set of participants and discuss the several possible applications of uBeacon to highlight its usefulness.