How positioning works
Blecon delivers real-time location across indoor and outdoor environments without the usual constraints of an RTLS deployment. Tracked devices broadcast standard Bluetooth signals and any nearby hotspot picks them up — whether that's a fixed installation on the ceiling, a hub mounted in a vehicle, or a phone carried by a frontline worker. The positioning engine calculates positions continuously across all of them.
The process
- Devices broadcast Bluetooth signals continuously.
- Hotspots detect those signals and measure the signal strength (RSSI).
- Hotspots report measurements to the Blecon cloud.
- The positioning engine selects the best available measurement to calculate the device's position.
How hotspots know their location
Hotspots determine their own position in one of three ways:
- Manual configuration — You set the hotspot's exact coordinates (GPS or local x/y/z). Most accurate.
- GPS — Hotspots with GPS modules determine their own position. Typical accuracy: 5–10 meters.
- WiFi/cellular — Hotspots estimate their location from nearby networks. Typical accuracy: 10–100 meters.
The system automatically prefers hotspots with better location accuracy and excludes those with stale data.
Position calculation
The positioning engine selects the best available measurement to calculate the device's position, giving room-level or area-level accuracy.
When multiple hotspots detect the same device, the system automatically picks the best hotspot based on signal strength and location accuracy.
Collection window
The system collects measurements over a configurable time window (default: 90 seconds) before calculating a position. The positioning engine processes accumulated measurements in regular cycles. Longer windows provide more data but increase latency.
When position events are emitted
Calculating a position and emitting a position event are separate steps. The engine calculates continuously, but only emits an event when something meaningful has changed. A new network.device_position event is sent when any of the following conditions are met:
| Condition | Details |
|---|---|
| First detection | The first time a device is seen on the network. Always emits immediately. |
| Device moved | The device has moved beyond the movement threshold (default: 30 m) since the last position event, and a minimum interval has passed. |
| Heartbeat | A configurable interval (default: 10 minutes) has elapsed since the last position event, regardless of movement. Keeps the device's last-known position current even when stationary. |
| Zone change | The device has entered or left a network zone. Emits immediately on transition. |
| Accuracy improved | The new position is at least twice as accurate as the last emitted one. This ensures that a device seen initially through a low-accuracy hotspot (for example, a phone with stale GPS) gets a corrected position quickly once a better hotspot detects it, without waiting for the next heartbeat. |
If none of these conditions are met, the calculation runs but no event is emitted — the position has not changed meaningfully.
The trigger field on each position event indicates which condition was met. The movement threshold and heartbeat interval are configurable per network. See Positioning settings.
Network zones — positioning without coordinates
Where GPS isn't available (indoors, underground, dense urban areas), hotspots and reference beacons provide asset tracking without GPS through network zone positioning. Assign a network zone to a hotspot or place a reference beacon in a room, and any device detected there is reported in that network zone.
Network zones don't require surveyed coordinates — a single hotspot is enough. See Zone detection for setup details.
Accuracy
Position accuracy depends on:
- Hotspot location accuracy — Manually surveyed coordinates produce better positions than WiFi/cellular auto-location.
- Hotspot density — More hotspots means finer-grained proximity detection.
- Environment — Walls, metal, and water absorb Bluetooth signals and affect which hotspot detects the device.
| Configuration | Typical accuracy |
|---|---|
| GPS-positioned hotspots | Area level (5–10 meters) |
| WiFi/cellular auto-located hotspots | Broad area (10–100 meters) |
| Network zones (no coordinates needed) | Room or area level |
The accuracy value
Each position event includes an accuracy_meters value — an estimated accuracy radius in meters. This is not the raw GPS accuracy of the hotspot. It is a calculated value that accounts for two factors:
- Hotspot GPS accuracy — How precise the hotspot's own location fix is.
- Location freshness — How much time has passed since that fix, and how far the hotspot may have moved.
A phone standing still with a fresh GPS fix might produce a 5 m accuracy value. The same phone after walking for 10 seconds without a new fix might show 15 m — because the phone could have moved since its last known position. The accuracy value widens to reflect that real-world uncertainty.
In short: it's not that GPS is less accurate — it's that the system is being honest about the fact that a GPS reading from a few seconds ago doesn't perfectly represent where the hotspot is right now. A stationary hotspot will show accuracy much closer to its raw GPS.
You can filter out low-accuracy positions using the accuracy filter.
Two timestamps
Each position event includes two timestamps:
- Sample time — When the signal measurements were taken.
- Calculated at — When Blecon calculated the position from those measurements.
These may differ by seconds (real-time) or longer (if the device was offline and uploaded measurements later).