Beacon Services

Fortinet Beacon Services use iBeacon to allow mobile application (iOS and Android devices) to receive signals from beacons in the physical world to deliver hyper-contextual content to users based on location. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is the wireless personal area network technology used for transmitting data over short distances. Broadly, the Beacon Service requires a Bluetooth based iBeacon device to broadcast signals and a mobile application to receive these signals once it comes in the configured proximity. You can now create multiple Beacon Service profiles and map APs to a specific profile.

The Beacon services are available by default in FAP U421EV, FAP U423EV, FAP U321EV and FAP U323EV. For other non-wave2 APs, you will need Bluetooth adapters (For example: Broadcom USB Class 2 Bluetooth 4.0 Dongle, CSR 4.0 Bluetooth Dongle and Iogear Bluetooth 4.0 USB Micro Adapter GBU521). Ensure that Bluetooth adapters support Bluetooth version 4.0 or above.

Note:

Wave 1 APs must be connected to 802.3at power supply.

You can perform the following operations to manage the Beacon Services. Navigate to Configuration > Devices > Beacon Services.

Adding Beacon Services Profiles

This option allows you to add a Beacon Service. You can create multiple Beacon Service profiles and also map APs to a specific profile.

APs part of a profile send iBeacons that will help advertise hyperlocal content to users in context to their location.

Beacon Services

Update the following fields.

BLE Profile – Unique name for this Beacon Service profile. The supported range is 1-64 alphanumeric characters.

Advertise BLE Beacon – Enables the BLE beacons to advertise packets received by devices. These packets determine the location of the device with respect to the Beacon.

BLE Format – BLE Format – Select ibeacon as a BLE Format.

Beaconing Interval (ms) – Select the time interval at which the Beacons transmit signals to associated devices, that is, this sets the rate at which beacons advertise packets. Setting the beacon interval to a higher value decreases the frequency of unicasts and broadcasts sent by the AP. The supported range is 100-1000 milliseconds.

Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) – Click Generate UUID, to receive a UUID that is specific to the beacon. The purpose of the ID is to distinguish iBeacons in your network from all other beacons in other networks not monitored by you.

Major Number – This number is assigned to some beacons in a network and is used to distinguish this subset of beacons within a larger group of beacons. For example, beacons within a particular geographic area can have the same major number. The supported range is 0 to 65535.

Minor Number – This number is assigned to identify individual beacons. For example, each beacon in a group of beacons with the same major number, will have a unique minor number. The supported range is 0 to 65535.

Power Level – Select a power level for the beacon’s transmit signal. The higher the power the greater will be the range of your signal. This is measured in dBM (Decibel-Milliwatts). The supported range is 0(-29 dBm) to 15(4dBm).

Exporting Beacon Services Profiles

You can export the existing Beacon profiles into your local drive.

Importing  Beacon        Services      Profiles

You can load Beacon Services profiles by importing files (*.csv) from your local drive.

Click Import and browse to the saved *.csv template file.

Beacon Services

Adding         APs    to        the     Beacon        Service        Profile

Click the edit icon to view the service profile details. Beacon Services – Update page is displayed to make changes to the service profile.

Click the Add option to start adding APs to the service profile. By default this page shows the list of APs added to the service profile.

• You can add multiple APs to a service profile.
• An AP can be mapped to only one service profile at a time.

Editing Beacon Services Profiles

Select the Beacon Services profile and click Edit to edit the values for an existing profile.

Beacon Services

Deleting Beacon Services Profiles

Select the Beacon Services profile and click Delete in the Action column to delete the profile.

Beacon Services