What are BLE Beacons?
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons are small, wireless devices that broadcast signals to nearby Bluetooth-enabled devices. Designed for energy efficiency, these beacons transmit data packets over short distances, making them ideal for location-based services, asset tracking, and proximity marketing.
By sending out a unique identifier, BLE beacons can trigger specific actions on mobile apps or connected devices, creating a seamless bridge between the physical and digital worlds. With their low power consumption, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, BLE beacons have become essential tools in industries ranging from retail and healthcare to logistics and smart cities.
How Do BLE Beacons Work?
BLE beacons function by emitting a continuous stream of Bluetooth signals at regular intervals. These signals carry a unique identifier, which nearby Bluetooth-enabled devices, like smartphones or tablets, can detect and interpret. When a device receives the beacon’s signal, it can trigger specific actions within an app, such as sending notifications, gathering location data, or offering personalized content.
The core principle is simple: BLE beacons act as lighthouses, broadcasting information to devices within range, enabling precise location tracking, seamless navigation, and enhanced customer experiences in various settings.
How To Choose A Reliable BLE Beacon Manufacturer
Selecting the right BLE beacon manufacturer is a critical step that can influence the overall success of your deployment. With numerous options available, it’s important to look beyond just the price and focus on key factors that ensure reliability, quality, and long-term support. From understanding the manufacturer’s track record and expertise in BLE technology to evaluating their product offerings, certifications, and customer service, making an informed decision requires a comprehensive approach. Let’s dive into the essential criteria you should consider when choosing a beacon supplier to ensure you partner with a manufacturer that aligns with your business needs and goals.
Manufacturing BLE beacons and other IoT hardware in China has several benefits, which include lower costs, remarkable skills and expertise, and an extensive supply chain ecosystem. But there are several BLE beacon manufacturers in the country, so you should consider the following factors to pick the most suitable manufacturer for your use case.
Hardware Quality and Durability
BLE beacons are meant to be handled by users (who can be rough), installed in moving objects (increasing vibration exposure), or exposed to environmental conditions like moisture and humidity when interfaced with sensors. Therefore, they should have a rugged design, and this should be reflected in the company’s manufacturing processes and adherence to industry standards.
Testimonials are also important to determine the quality of the company’s products. Ideally, beacons should be capable of withstanding vibrations, drops to the ground, dust, and liquid splashes. So a high IP rating is a good feature. I recommend a long battery life as well.
Customizability
Every customer has a different use case for BLE beacons, so the manufacturer should provide customization options. The core can be the same across the board, but things like the SDK controls, case branding, transmission power and interval, and UUIDs should be customizable to meet different customer requirements.
Beacon Wireless Range
The BLE wireless transmission range in a beacon is arguably its most important property, and it should be long enough to reach the RLTS anchors mounted on the ceilings. The typical range is 2–5 meters because it balances performance and battery consumption. But your manufacturer should be able to customize this figure to be practical in your use case.
Company Reputation and Experience
One of the greatest indicators of a company’s prowess and experience is the feedback and reception it gets from the market. So the BLE beacon manufacturer you pick should have a good public reputation evidenced by high product ratings, testimonials, recommendations, etc.
Product Cost
Cheap is not always expensive and high costs don’t always mean quality. The most important factor to consider is BLE beacon quality. After that, consider the cost of the products from the narrowed-down list of suppliers, and pick the one that gives you the best value for money.
Support and Services
After making your order and receiving the hardware, the transaction should not end there. A BLE beacon manufacturer should at least provide technical support, warranties, and free replacements or repairs if the products come with manufacturer defects or don’t meet the required quality.
Who Are The Main Players in BLE Beacon Manufacturing
Considering the factors above, the top players in the BLE beacon manufacturing and IoT industry in general include the following.
Dusun IoT
Dusun IoT is what you would call the OG in the BLE beacon and IoT hardware manufacturing industry. Established in 2005, the company has 19 years of experience in ODM service that has resulted in over 50 national patents, 15 software copyrights, and a customer base of 3,000+ worldwide.
Dusun IoT’s products and expertise cover almost the entire IoT hardware ecosystem from BLE beacons to multiprotocol IoT gateways, ZigBee sensors, highly customizable SoMs, embedded mainboards, industrial SBCs, and more. Essentially, the company is a one-stop shop for developing various IoT solutions.
Narrowing it down to BLE beacons, Dusun manufactures various types to cater to different use cases, such as personnel tracking and access control, asset tracking and management, IoT integration, and proximity marketing. These beacons have various form factors for industrial, outdoor (waterproof), or consumer use, and they can be wearable, keyfobs, cards, wristbands, etc.
To facilitate quick development and testing, Dusun also manufactures various BLE beacon dev kits.
KKM
Although KKM is a relatively young BLE beacon manufacturer (founded in 2008), it has risen steadily to be among the top players in the industry. The company specializes in providing Bluetooth IoT products for end-to-end solutions, and some of the products in its lineup include:
- BLE beacons
- IoT gateways
- Sensor tags
- Key finders
- Bluetooth ESL
- LTE beacons
KKM’s ODM and OEM services include white-label solutions, firmware customization, hardware development, and platform integration.
All of KKM’s products are UL, CE, ETL, FCC, BQB, MSDS, Reach, and RoHS certified for global acceptability, and the company has earned more than 50 patents over its 16-year history for hardware designs, algorithms, and technology.
Minew
Minew is a well-known ODM and OEM IoT hardware manufacturer that specializes in BLE beacons, GPS trackers, wireless sensors, multiprotocol (BLE and WiFi) gateways, connectivity modules, and electronic shelf labels.
From its humble beginnings in 2007, this company has grown to become a respectable brand that helps accelerate the completion of PoC and IoT projects using cutting-edge wireless connectivity solutions, robust IoT hardware, and R&D.
Minew’s global reach currently stands at 100+ countries with 200 patents and certifications acquired over 17 years of customized IoT hardware manufacturing.
Moko
Moko is a year older than Minew and besides its longer experience, the company boasts of a team of over 90 R&D engineers who have turned the company into an innovative IoT hardware manufacturer.
The company currently provides a wide selection of BLE beacon products in the form of asset tags, sensor tags, location anchors, and personnel tags. These devices have some shared features, which include rugged and durable constructions for water, shock, high temperature, and pressure resistance, flexible and adaptable form factors, high range and accuracy, and enhanced alerts/interactivity.
Why Choose Dusun IoT As Your BLE Beacon Manufacturer
Dusun IoT stands out from the competition because we provide these benefits to our customers.
Long Experience in Bluetooth Device Development: From the onset, Dusun IoT has always focused on Bluetooth development, and this is evident in our BLE product lineup, which includes BLE-enabled TV remote controls, BLE-based voice recognition modules, BLE gateways, and more. With almost 20 years of experience in Bluetooth device development under our belt, you can be sure that our BLE beacons have the quality, range, customizability, energy efficiency, and innovativeness advantages.
Affordable Pricing: We have the best pricing advantage, more so on bulk orders due to the economies of scale. Our customers can test all the beacons bought and choose the most suitable one for their specific use case. Additionally, you can customize our products to maximize compatibility, which will later make it cheaper to deploy them to the market.
R&D Resource: Our professional R&D team comprises experts from prestigious universities, who inject innovation into our BLE beacons to make them efficient, high-quality, and up to the task. But we don’t handle the development process as a closed system. We can provide beacon SDKs, beacon schematics, and more to support beacon development.
Wide Beacon Selection Range: One BLE beacon cannot handle all use cases, so we provide various beacon options with diverse features, which you can customize and program.
Wide Range of Gateways: We understand that not all customers need BLE gateways to create the local network for the beacons, but for those that need them, we have all the hardware and technology in-house. Our smart IoT gateways carry the most complete set of features, which include AI and edge computing, multiprotocol support, customizable modular designs, and flexible programmability to help meet various requirements.
Applicable Scenarios: Our wide range of BLE beacons are applicable in several use cases, which include asset tracking, temperature/humidity/positioning monitoring in warehouses and manufacturing factories, personnel tracking, proximity marketing, etc.
Final Words
In conclusion, China has become the world’s manufacturing hub, especially for electronics, so you should consider this location for your IoT hardware manufacturing. For BLE beacons, Dusun IoT stands out among its peers because it provides reasonably priced, high-quality, diverse, and customizable products to suit different applications.
Our experience in the field of Bluetooth has made us a global leader in BLE beacon manufacturing, and you can take advantage of our R&D and expertise in your project by contacting us with your requirements to get started.
