Locator History Playback

A while back I started a side project based on Java Spring Boot for the backend, HTML/Javascript front end, and edge devices running C++ on ESP32-based devices. The idea is to be able to track active BLE beacons based on their RSSI value to see where it went in a facility. In the screenshot above, you can see what a sample screenshot with sample data might look like in the playback.

The screenshot page takes the data out of the SQL database for a specific BLE beacon. I have lots of ideas on other reports I want to be able to do, which might look something like this:

1- Live View by Beacon – You’ll select a beacon similar to the page above, and you would select an image and could drag/drop out the Locators onto the image (or pick from a pre-saved layout). It’ll show the most recent locator that saw that beacon, and if it’s on the map it’ll highlight it similar to the current report.

I’ll add more to this as I go, but the next step is going to get more accurate data in the database. I’m going to revise my edge device code and deploy a few in my apartment so I can get more data.

The basics of the edge device: ESP32 is being used for Wifi connectivity and BLE scanning, and is paired with a mmwave motion detection module. When motion is detected in front of the device, it’ll do several BLE beacon scans and report back all of the MAC addresses for BLE devices it saw and what the RSSI values were via the REST API running on Java Spring boot. The server will figure out if any of the reports are beacons I’m tracking, and if this locator station should become the new owner of the device and update in the database accordingly.