Tile, TrackR, Duet, iHere3, and other tracking device vendors use Bluetooth LE (BLE) to locate lost items with companion iPhone and Android smartphone applications. Since BLE connectivity is limited to 30 feet, these companies use crowdsource GPS techniques to help locate items.
If an item is lost, and is detected by another user’s TrackR smartphone application, perhaps hundreds of miles away, the location of the item is forwarded to the cloud and then to the first user’s TrackR smartphone application, dramatically extending the range of TrackR.
Wonderful idea. However, these crowdsource GPS techniques rely on a strong community of BLE products from a single vendor, and are not interoperable with tracking devices from other vendors. For example, if your item is tracked by a Tile and is lost, TrackR users will not detect the presence of your item.
This technical paper, written for AmbyGear, and distributed to multiple BLE vendors for comment, documents a proposed amendment to Bluetooth LE advertisement packet to extend crowdsource GPS to include interoperability with multiple vendors. Adoption of this amendment provides a significant multiplier effect.
Rather than rely on a community of tens or hundreds of thousands of BLE devices from a single vendor, imagine having access to millions of BLE devices worldwide from many vendors to help track your items.
Multi-Vendor Crowdsource BLE GPS Cloud Service
Sequence of operation follows:
- Smartphone application from vendor A detects crowdsource GPS packet from BLE tracking device designed by vendor B
- Smartphone application from vendor A forwards crowdsource GPS packet to a vendor-agnostic cloud service (perhaps operated by a Bluetooth SIG), which forwards the packet to vendor B cloud (company ID assigned by Bluetooth SIG resides in the crowdsource GPS packet field)
- Vendor B receives the crowdsource GPS package from the cloud, and provides the location of the item to the user in the user’ smartphone application
This paper uses proprietary value 0xFF in the AD Type field to indicate a Vendor ID advertising packet containing data, and a Crowdsource flag to indicate the packet should be forwarded to the cloud service. Variations obviously exist in how this feature can be implemented by a Bluetooth SIG. For example, a crowdsource GPS feature can be implemented as an encrypted GATT service to secure the device serial number for increased security.