Chapter 12
Presence-Based Locating
In This Chapter
Understanding how presence-based locating works
Recognizing the value of presence-based locating
Sometimes, you don’t need to know the actual location of a person or asset — just whether that person or asset is in the area. Presence-based locating does just that. It just indicates availability (yes or no).
When you take inventory of your products, for example, you just need to know whether the product is on the premises. Or for example, after the workday is over, you may want to turn on the security alarms or turn off the lights to conserve energy after you confirm by presence-based locating that all employees have left the building.
Presence-based locating is one of the simplest forms of RTLS and you can use many of the technologies that I discuss in Chapters 8 through 11 to do presence-based locating. In this chapter, I explain how to achieve presence-based locating and offer you some examples of real-world applications of the technology.
Detecting Presence
Presence and location are two critical qualities associated with any asset or person. Presence indicates availability (yes or no), and location indicates exact position.
Some applications detect presence by using room- or subroom-level locating. Other applications use precision or choke-point locating, which are at the sharp end of location-based technologies that detect presence. Because detecting presence limits the applications you use to ones that don’t need precise ...
