There are many parameters you can be looking for in your beacon device. BLE 4 or 5, battery life, compatibility with protocols like iBeacon or Eddystone.
Today, let’s look at which beacons/brands you might trust to and which beacons you might want to avoid.
YES
Based on our experience, let’s start with clear YES, love and buy!
YES1 – KKM K5 beacon. iOS/Android app to set up, open sourced developer SDK!!! We sell it and consider one of the best options for the automatic mileage tracking function in our apps.
YES2 – Minew E7 Plus. Another option that is on par with KKM K5. A tiny minus is that SDK is not completely open sourced, but uses the closed source framework. Probably nothing that regular user can be concerned about. Still, great!
Both YES1 and YES2 are great for the battery life (~1 year when used as an Apple/iOS compatible iBeacon). It’s also very easy to exchange the battery, unscrew, pull, push the new one. CR2477 battery is not available in every store, but every specialised e-store should have them for about 3€.
YES3 – KKM U1. Minew has similar USB powered beacon. USB beacons are great for automatic mileage tracking. They only work when your engine is started (USB in the car is powered on then) – this is exactly when you want to track! We sell KKM U1 version.
YES4 – KKM K21. This is great for testing or when you need to use the beacon sporadically. It has a button to switch it on and off. A bless for the developer! 🙂 Other than that, given the battery is smaller (CR2032), it’s probably not the best option for the automatic mileage tracking.
YES5 – KKM K9. Super long range, super long battery life. ER14505 battery (AA with wires, can cost 10-15€). IP67 Waterproof (YES1&YES2 are IP67 as well).
That was about 100% YES beacons. Surely, there might be parameters that will turn these beacon to NO for you. Please consider carefully based on your requirements. For us, the main focus is on the automatic mileage tracking function and general home automation.
MAYBE, NOT?
MAYBE1 – Mikrotik TG-BT5-IN. There is also an outdoor, waterproof version from Mikrotik (also with built-in battery). You’ find this beacon having a good iOS/Android app from Mikrotik, being very small (bug bigger than above USB powered beacons). One huge drawback is BUILT-IN battery. 300mAh! Mikrotik says it is good for years. But this is not true if you need to setup this as an Apple/iOS compatible iBeacon with 100ms advertisement. Mikrotik provides “years” for 1 advertisement for second frequency. Basically, no, unless you have no other choice.
NO!
Probably there is no reason you’d go for any of the NOs, unless you know what you are doing.
NO1. Teltonika’s Eye Beacon. There is a note on Telkonika’s shop saying this is not iOS compatible and IT IS NOT. You can enter iBeacon advertisement UUID with hyphens – the input length issue. Don’t expect any answer from Teltonika as for why.
NO2. iNode Beacon. No iOS setup app, only small CR2032 battery, very subpar case when compared to KKM K5 or Minew E7.
NO3. Generic “Find XYZ” beacons. This might look as YES4 – KKM K21 and in a way it is. Some company bought these K21 in bulk, printed their logo above and told some other company to made it part of “Find XYZ”, “Smart ABC” thing. When this happens everything is locked in the beacon to only provide the function that the above parties decided to provide. Don’t expect any configuration apps for these or iBeacon advertisement UUID broadcast. These are crippled!
Postscriptum.
The author of this article (Stan) is not an expert in anything, but hopefully you have more information now to make better decision. Lame Stan studied thermal transfer printers for a half day and went buying Zebra GX430t just to find out that this is a great model, but not the last one and is not future proof anymore to buy in 2023. So he returned GX430t minus a fee, and went for ZD621. Stan wished there would be an article like above on the thermal transfer printers. Thus the article!
! Feel free to correct the author or suggest additions to this article and beacons list, based on your experience.