User's Manual

Beacon100
Users Guide
Optimizing Battery Life
The Beacon100 Wi-Fi tag uses an ultra-low power system-on-chip architecture that
minimizes the power consumption. This enables running tags with same batteries for
several years. However, to get the maximum lifetime from your tags, you should take
care that your network and tag configuration supports all possible power saving features.
The principle behind optimizing battery life is to minimize the amount of time the tag is
active.
Recommendations for optimizing battery lifetime include the following:
• Scan only channels that are in use in your network. Typically, because of overlap
of channels, there are only 3 or 4 channels in use from the 11 (or 13/14)
available.
• Use single SSID whenever possible. Using multiple SSIDs requires additional
network scans and decreases battery lifetime.
• When using dynamic IP addressing, tune the DHCP server to provide very long
lease times for tag IP addresses.
• Beacon100 tags support roaming between sub networks. This feature renews a
tag’s IP address whenever the access point association changes. Since renewing
IP addresses consumes large amounts of energy, it is strongly recommended to
avoid using the network-wide dynamic addressing feature if it is not needed.
• Tune the wake-up settings to match your application needs. More frequent
updates shorten the battery lifetime.
Tag Configuration
The tag can be adjusted for each application and network settings by adjusting a set of
parameters. The parameters can be changed wirelessly using the Beacon100 laptop
software or through Tag Configurations in Positioning Engine.
Activator is used for the initial configuration settings that allow connecting the tag to
Positioning Engine over the network. After connection is established with Positioning
Engine, all configurations can be managed through Positioning Engine.
Network Settings
Table 2 shows the list of available network settings.
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