WEEK 4 : 2nd Briefing on Report Writing for Chapter 1 and 2.

In this week, there was a briefing on report writing for chapter 1 and chapter 2 which is the Introduction and Literature Review. This briefing is a guidance to help the students to have better understanding on writing their report for the first time.

We did some research in finalize our idea for this project. We wanted to make an application in smart devices that have IN and OUT database system using APP INVENTOR 2 as suggested by our supervisor. With some addition to have alarm set in the coding to alert the users when the beacon device and the animal been taken away beyond the range of 100 meters and able to detect where the animal been taken away.

First things first, what is Beacon technology? A beacon is a small Bluetooth radio transmitter. It’s kind of like a lighthouse as it repeatedly transmits a single signal that other devices can see. Instead of emitting visible light, though, it broadcasts a radio signal that is made up of a combination of letters and numbers transmitted on a regular interval of approximately 1/10th of a second. A Bluetooth-equipped device like a smart phone can “see” a beacon once it’s in range, much like sailors looking for a lighthouse to know where they are.

What do they look like? Beacons are very small, simple devices. If you crack one open, you won’t find thirty motherboards and oodles of wires. You’ll find a CPU, radio, and batteries. Beacons often use small lithium chip batteries (smaller and more powerful than AA batteries) or run via connected power like USB plugs. They come in different shapes and colors, may include accelerometers, temperature sensors, or unique add-ons but all of them have one thing in common—they transmit a signal.

What is a beacon actually transmitting? It’s not throwing just any old message into the air. It’s transmitting a unique ID number that tells a listening device which beacon it’s next to. 

How can we interact with beacons?

For example, we studied that this technology has been used first at the shopping mall and supermarket in US has been experimenting this beacon technology. When a shopping mall installs beacons in their shop, all of the beacons will have certain IDs, registered in their dedicated app. This means a smart phone app can immediately recognize that the incoming ID is important and that it’s from that particular mall. The ID, however, has little meaning on its own; it’s entirely up to an app or other program to recognize what it means. It has become a retail’s newest bet in marketing planning.

What happens next? That depends on what the owner has programmed it to do. One code could trigger the app to send a coupon. Another could offer navigation services. The possibilities are nearly endless. All the beacon has to do is connect your exact location to the app, and the rest is up to the program.

Honestly, the beacon technology is already exist yet it is not widely known and practically used in Malaysia. So we are making this project, in hope that we can widely use beacon technology in future. We also did some survey type of beacon to be purchased and we then purchased two of the Beacon BLE from different brand in purpose to study the different in their performances, size, and weigh. Both of the devices we purchased from Lazada, an online shopping app. The product will be shipped from China and would be arrived in 3 weeks or more.