Blecon Hub
A hub is a dedicated hardware unit mounted at a permanent location in your facility. It provides consistent Bluetooth scanning coverage of the area around it.
A hub is one kind of hotspot. "Hotspot" is the general word for anything that relays a tag signal to the cloud: a hub, a mobile device running the Blecon Agent, or a third-party access point. "Hub" means the fixed hardware.
Setting up hubs
- Mount the hub at your chosen location. Ceiling mounting gives the most even coverage.
- Power on: Connect to power (PoE or AC adapter, depending on model).
- Connect: The hub connects to the Blecon cloud automatically via Ethernet, WiFi, or cellular.
- Register: In the dashboard, select Hubs under Network in the sidebar, then choose Add Hub. Enter the Hub ID and, optionally, a Name and a Site. To register hubs from your own code, use the Tracker API.
- Place it: Open the hub from the list and set its position, as described in Configuring location.
Hub management requires the Enterprise tier. On other plans the Hubs page shows the upgrade notice instead of the list.
Configuring location
Open a hub from the Hubs list. Its detail page has three ways to fix where the hub is:
- Map position: In the Position card, click the map to place the hub, and drag the marker to adjust it. Clear position removes it. A hub with no position uses its own reported location and shows as Unplaced in the list.
- Network zone: In the Details card, choose a Network zone. Assets that this hub hears best are placed in that zone. This gives room-level presence without surveyed coordinates.
- Local coordinates (x/y/z in metres): Set these through the Tracker API for a site surveyed in a local grid. The cloud converts them to latitude and longitude against a datum: the map position of local (0, 0) and the grid's rotation. Set the datums in the Local coordinate datums card at the bottom of the Hubs page, as an account default or one per site.
A position you set takes priority over the hub's self-reported location. When the two are more than 100 metres apart, the detail page shows the distance between them.
Placement guidelines
- Space hubs 10–15 meters apart for 2–5 meter positioning accuracy.
- Mount at consistent heights for reliable signal measurement.
- Avoid placing directly behind large metal objects or water sources.
- Document hub locations for future maintenance.
For detailed placement guidance, see Plan hub placement for a warehouse.
Monitoring
Select Hubs under Network in the sidebar to see the status of every registered hub.
The cards along the top count your hubs by state. Click a card to filter the table to those hubs:
- Online: The hub has reported in the last 15 minutes.
- Offline: Nothing has been heard from the hub for 15 minutes. It is not providing coverage.
- Pending: The hub is registered, but the cloud has not yet heard from it. This card appears only while a hub is pending.
- Unplaced: The hub has no position set. See Configuring location.
The table shows each hub's Status, when it was Last Seen, whether it is placed, and its Source (added manually, or synced from Juniper Mist or Cisco Spaces). The list does not refresh by itself. Choose Refresh to update it.
Any traffic from the hub counts as a report: tag sightings, location updates and the hub's own status report. A new hub shows Online about a minute after it connects, so you can confirm an installation from the dashboard as soon as the hub's LED is solid.
Click a hub to open its detail page. The header shows its status, Last seen and when it was Registered. The Hardware card shows what the hub reports about itself, such as its model, software versions and cellular signal.