BLE ranging possible by RSSI?

[espruino-discuss]

Posted at 2016-11-14 by ChristianW

Just curious:
Is BLE ranging possible with the BLE module in puck.js?
Meaning will one puck acting as a central get the RSSI value of another puck acting as a peripheral?

(backer of puck.js; just got me a Pico because I couldn't wait any longer...)

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2016-11-15 by @gfwilliams

:) Yes, it can - in fact it can get RSSI of any devices advertising around it without connecting to them. Some devices - like Eddystone beacons - even broadcast what the RSSI at 1 meter is, so it's pretty easy to work back to get a distance.

It's not very accurate though - on any BLE device. RSSI can change even depending on the angle the transmitter/receiver is at, and if there's something like a desk in the way that can change it too, and walls affect it a huge amount

Still, it's good for a rough idea, and the more beacons you have the better it'll be.

[espruino-discuss]

Posted at 2016-11-15 by ChristianW

Perfect.
I was already thinking of some clever ideas for interactive board games with communicating pawns... :)

Ranging would be a plus here.
Already worked with Apple CoreBluetooth - so it should be easy to bring mobiles into the game as well.

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2016-11-15 by @gfwilliams

Great! It should be pretty straightforward for you to integrate them into your apps then.

Over small distances I imagine measuring distance might be quite a bit better - I wonder how much detail you could get if each piece talked to each other piece.