Bluetooth beaconing is a secondary effect of BLE; however, it is an important and significant technology for IoT. Because beacons are not necessarily sensors, we didn't cover them explicitly in the Chapter 3, Sensors, Endpoints, and Power Systems (although some do provide sensing information in an advertisement packet). Beaconing is simply using Bluetooth devices in LE mode to advertise on some periodic basis. Beacons never connect or pair with a host. If a beacon were to connect, all advertisements would stop and no other device could hear that beacon. The three use cases important to retail, healthcare, asset tracking, logistics, and many other markets are:
- Static point of Interest (POI)
- Broadcasting telemetry data
- Indoor positioning ...
