Devices and network architecture for improved beacon-mediated data context sensing

摘要

Architectures, devices, systems and methods incorporating beacon transmissions that comply with a defined communications protocol having a digital identifier value and any associated message frames, sometimes termed a major value and a minor value, in which the transmissions incorporate sensor data encoded on the fly into one or more of the bitstrings of the protocol by a bitwise substitution process. Sensor data may include temperature, light intensity, smoke, voltage, sound, motion, displacement, acceleration, humidity, pressure, radiation, button-press stimulus event, compass direction, proximity, or other stimuli or sensor data, for example, and is more generally termed “contextual content”. According to relationships and permissions established by a receiving device and/or the system operator, look-up results are processed to configure notifications tied to the contextual content of the broadcast. Notifications to a receiving device and/or system are configured according to contextual data broadcast by the beacon. Beacons having the improved communications protocol may be deployed individually or in networks. The beacon broadcast may be accessed by naïve devices, but bit overloading may also be used to prevent unauthorized systems from correctly interpreting the data. Thus the architectures, devices, systems and methods of the invention enable a beacon having nested levels of interaction dependent on context established by the beacon and the relationship established with a compatible receiver.