Partner Spotlight: Cisco Meraki integration to manage Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE) traffic volume in RTLS deployments
When hotels were required to deploy a panic button solution for Guest Room Attendants (GRA), AiRISTA and Cisco Meraki came together to provide a fast, cost effective solution.
As the American Hotel Association announced its 5 Star Promise which included safety devices for GRAs, several cities and states were mandating the use of panic buttons for vulnerable staff. This created a wave of activity as hotel operators searched for solutions to meet the varying requirements across the effected states. To be fast and affordable the ideal solution would leverage existing wireless infrastructure using a cloud delivered alerting platform.
A major worldwide hotel chain approached Cisco Meraki and AiRISTA to create a BLE based solution. With Cisco Meraki access points throughout hotels, the goal was to leverage the APs’ BLE radio and eliminate the need for BLE beacons as location anchor points. Since the Cisco Meraki APs scanned the BLE space several times per second and with so many BLE devices in the environment, the challenge was to manage the streams of data delivered to the AiRISTA RTLS cloud platform, Unified Vision.
Working with Meraki, the companies agreed on a BLE protocol and packet format. MQTT is a streaming protocol used in many IoT applications where end points like machines stream high volumes of data. As an intelligent edge device, the Meraki AP transmits packets to the Unified Vision cloud platform.
How does the solution work? When a GRA pushes the button on their safety tag, the event is “heard” by neighboring APs and the signal strength as perceived by each AP is relayed to AiRISTA’s Unified Vision platform to determine the position of the GRA. Based on user defined rules, the Unified Vision platform delivers emergency notifications to responders over the Meraki Wi-Fi connection as a message that appears on the responders’ tags directing them to the GRA’s location
Forward thinking companies are making technology investments based on extensible platforms that deliver value across the enterprise. With its large ecosystem of partners and commitment to BLE base solutions, the Cisco Meraki wireless platform is seen as a future-proof solution. Similarly, AiRISTA’s Unified Vision platform adds location insights to the movement of people and assets throughout the environment.
The following is a video explanation of the power of the Cisco Meraki platform to surround customers with an engaging experience, and highlights AiRISTA’s GRA safety solution to bring location intelligence to the experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbqAXc06l-k
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