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Reference beacons

GPS doesn't work indoors. Reference beacons solve this by giving the positioning system fixed, known anchor points throughout your building, so Blecon can accurately place tracked tags even deep inside a warehouse, office, or factory floor.

A reference beacon is a small Blecon tag installed at a known location. Because its position is pre-configured, the system uses it as a spatial anchor rather than trying to locate it. This lets hotspots determine which area they're covering and assign tracked tags to the right location.

Reference beacons also make zone assignment more flexible: they tell nearby hotspots which network zone they're in, so you can reorganize zones just by moving tags instead of changing hotspot settings.

How reference beacons work

reference beacon propagates its zone to nearby tags via the hotspot

A reference beacon is a regular Blecon tag configured with:

  • A fixed position (GPS coordinates or local x/y/z).
  • A zone assignment (which network zone the tag belongs to).

When a hotspot detects a reference beacon, the system doesn't calculate the tag's position (it's already known). Instead, the tag's network zone assignment is propagated to the hotspot. Any other tags detected by that hotspot then inherit the network zone from the reference beacon.

This means you can assign network zones without configuring each hotspot individually. Place a reference beacon in a room, and any hotspot that detects it will report tags in that room's network zone.

Setting up a reference beacon

  1. Register a tag on your network.
  2. In the Blecon Console, open the tag detail page.
  3. Toggle reference beacon on.
  4. Select the network zone the tag belongs to.
  5. Optionally set the tag's floor and GPS coordinates (for positioning accuracy).

The tag's zone assignment takes effect immediately. Hotspots that detect the tag will start reporting its zone for other tags.

When to use reference beacons

  • Room-level network zone assignment: Place a tag in each room. Hotspots automatically learn which room they're covering.
  • Flexible deployments: Move a tag to reassign a hotspot's network zone without reconfiguring the hotspot itself.
  • Sites with shared hotspot infrastructure: Multiple network zones can be served by the same hotspots, with tags defining the boundaries.

Reference beacons vs direct hub configuration

There are two ways to assign a network zone to a hotspot location:

Direct hub configuration: Open the hub's record in the Blecon Console and set its network zone directly. The hub reports that zone for all tags it detects. This is the simpler option and works well when hubs are permanently installed in a fixed area and zones are unlikely to change.

reference beacons: The hub learns its network zone from a nearby reference beacon rather than from its own configuration. This is more flexible: you can reassign zones by moving tags without touching hub settings, and a single hub can cover multiple zones if it detects tags from more than one.

If both are configured on the same hub, the reference beacon's zone takes priority.

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