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Deploy the Blecon Agent to your frontline devices

The devices your frontline workers already carry can be your tracking coverage. With the Blecon Agent installed, each device detects the tags near it and relays them to the cloud as the worker moves through the site. There is no hardware to install, and coverage starts the day the app is on the devices. This guide plans which devices get the app, installs it on a fleet or on a few devices, and checks that each one works.

Prerequisites

  • A Blecon Track workspace.
  • The devices: Android 10, iOS 18, Windows 10 or macOS 15.0, or later. See Compatibility.
  • For a managed fleet, access to your mobile device management (MDM) platform.

Step 1: Choose the workers and the devices

A device covers the area around it wherever it goes. The routes your workers take are your coverage, so choose the devices by where their workers go:

  • Give the app to the workers who move through the areas you want covered, such as pickers, forklift drivers, drivers and the yard team.
  • Cover each shift. A device that is switched off, or in a locker, covers nothing.
  • Note the areas no device passes often enough, such as store rooms and cages. Plan hubs for those: see Plan hub placement for a warehouse.

Outdoors, a device has a good GPS fix, and the assets it detects get a good position. Indoors, GPS is poor or missing. Plan anchors along the indoor routes: see Plan anchor placement.

Step 2: Install the app

On a managed fleet, deploy the app with your MDM platform. Add the app from its store, grant its permissions in the MDM policy (on Android), and assign it to the devices. Nobody has to install the app on each device, and the app needs no sign-in. The app IDs and the permissions to grant are in Mobile device management (MDM).

On a few devices, install the app by hand:

  1. Go to Network > Agent. Scan the QR code with each device to open its app store, or use the store links.
  2. Open the app and allow Bluetooth and location. On Android, choose Allow all the time, so the app keeps working when the device is locked. On iOS, choose Always Allow for both.

Either way, the app then runs in the background, and nobody has to open it.

Step 3: Stop battery saving from stopping the app

Battery saving can stop the app from scanning. On Android:

  1. Go to Settings > Apps, select the Blecon Agent, then select Battery > Unrestricted.
  2. Check that battery saving mode is off. It limits Bluetooth access.

On a managed fleet, set the same in your MDM policy where your platform allows it.

Step 4: Check each device

  1. Open the Blecon Agent on the device.
  2. The main screen must show that the app is Active, with green checkmarks for Scanning for tagged assets and Connected to Blecon Network.
  3. If it shows Inactive, read the warning at the bottom of the screen. A common cause is battery saving mode.

Then walk a route with the device. The tags near it appear on Map. If a tag does not appear, see Troubleshoot a tag not appearing on the map.

Step 5: Decide whether to track the devices too

The steps above track your tags. The devices themselves are not on the map until you add them. To see where each device is, for example to find a handheld:

  1. Go to Devices and click Add Device. Follow the steps on the screen with the device.
  2. Set a policy in Device Tracking. A device's own location is recorded only during its work schedule or inside its work sites, as the policy says.

Policies do not affect tags. A device outside its policy still relays every tag near it.

Questions? Contact Blecon support — we're happy to help.