Attendance with a Bluetooth beacon
A Bluetooth beacon is a small electronic device that (when powered), silently broadcasts a Bluetooth identifier.
For attendance, a participant in your group needs to be within range of the beacon (about 150 ft), in order to "check in."
Why use a beacon for check-ins?
- GPS is not reliable (i.e. inside of multi-storey building).
- You don't want to use GPS (perhaps due to privacy concerns).
- You need a real-time-portable attendance target.
- You want to tighten up a check-in location, perhaps down to a particular room.
The Youhere beacon
We've developed a beacon, tailored for check-ins. To use it, power up the beacon with any USB-powered port (your laptop, a phone charger, USB power-pack, etc.). It will immediately start broadcasting with a range of about 150 ft. When a participant taps "Check me in," the app will look for the beacon's Bluetooth identifier and if found, the participant will be checked in.
Beacon Usage
To set up a beacon check-in, select a "beacon check-in"
in the blue dropdown you'll see on your main Youhere page.
Part of the "beacon check-in" involves you filling in the beacon's Bluetooth identifier into your Youhere.org account. You can set this to whatever you wish, as long as it matches the Beacon's identifier. (
YouhereBeacon is the default name of our beacon.)
When a participant taps "Check me in," the App will scan for this Bluetooth identifier, allowing a check-in only if a matching Bluetooth identifier is found. (There are often many Bluetooth identifiers in a given area due to headphones, tablet pencils, smart-watches, etc.)
Beacon Purchase
The Youhere beacon (pictured above) is available for purchase here.
- Cost $79.99.
- Free shipping.
- Refund/return policy: -15% refund, within 60 days of purchase.
- Oct 2024: Beacons are in stock and ready to ship.
Yes. We tested extensively with a few different beacons. Here's what we found:
- Any Bluetooth beacon will work, but most broadcast in on/off bursts to save battery life.
- On/off broadcasting was not always picked up by nearby phones in our testing.
- Our beacon broadcasts continuously and was always and immediately picked up by all test phones within 150 ft.
- The Bluetooth identifier of many Bluetooth devices cannot actually be changed.
- Example: The Blue Charm Beacon (BC011-MultiBeacon).
- Pros: Small, cheap, and easy to configure (set name and broadcasat power) with an App.
- Cons: Easy to lose, internal non-rechargeable battery, some Android phones (Galaxy J3) do not pick up the signal immediately (and would require multiple "check me in" taps).
- It's best to set the beacon within line-of-site of your participants.
- You can verify the beacon's signal by tapping "Other Stuff" in the app, then "Test Bluetooth." After 5 seconds, a list of all found Bluetooth signals will be listed. Look for the name of the beacon. The default name when shipped is "YouhereBeacon."
- Both the broadcast name and signal strength of the beacon are adjustable. Contact us for instructions.
- You can use multiple beacons (each with a different name), for large area coverage.