Quick Start

Requirements

In order to use our BlueRange platform you will need a few basic components:

Getting Started

This guide assumes that you will be using our cloud instance https://iot.bluerange.io but steps are the same for other installation types as well, just make sure to properly replace the URL with the correct one. Some of the steps mentioned in this guide might already have been done and you can simply skip these steps.

Setting up an Organization

If you have an on-premise installation and you do not yet have an organization set up, follow these steps for setting up an organization first.

Logging in With Your Organization

Once you log in with the user and password for your organization, you will be directed to the buildings view that lets you manage buildings, floors, rooms and zones.

buildings empty

On the left side, you will see the main modules which are > Buildings, > Networks and > Devices. Administrative tasks such as User management are available under your profile in the lower left through > User Icon > Account Settings.

But now, we will start out by creating a new network of devices so go to the > Networks module.

You will be greeted with an empty page as you have not yet created any networks.

networks empty

Continue by adding a adding a network by clicking on Create Network. You should give a descriptive name such as e.g. Lobby Network.

You will then be taken to the network overview which does not yet have any devices enrolled.

network no devices

For the next step, make sure to have some BlueRange devices ready. You will at least need a BlueRange Gateway. For an installation with BlueRange mesh, you will also need some BlueRange devices such as mesh nodes and optionally some tags.

Installing and Enrolling your Devices

Setting up your devices physically and enrolling them usually happens at the same time. You should start by enrolling our BlueRange Gateway as it will be used to enroll further devices such as mesh nodes and tags. We have a separate guide for the physical installation of our devices available here:

Install Mesh Hardware

In a typical installation you will want to install your devices physically, enroll them with our platform, create a building and a floor and position the devices on the floor plan.

You can do this by either using our BlueRange Setup App or our BlueRange Portal. If you want to install the devices and directly add them to the platform and position them on the floor plan, use the BlueRange Setup App, if you plan on importing a large number of devices at once, use our Portal.

Once you are done with these steps, make sure to return to this guide :-)

Using your Installation

Once everything was enrolled, you are ready to use it. Choose what you would like to do next. As our platform supports a multitude of use-cases, you need to decide what you want to do first. Pick one to continue :-)

Asset Tracking

If you want to use Asset Tracking, you must have positioned all your Mesh Nodes on a floor plan. The floor must also have the required information for asset tracking. If you did not do this previously, take a look at creating the building structure and at positioning the devices.

Before you are able to use your installation for asset tracking, you will first need to do a calibration process.

This can currently only be done by using our BlueRange Admin App for iPhones. See the Calibration chapter for a guide on how to do this.

After doing the calibration, you should now see that your tags are being correctly tracked in the platform. Go to > Buildings > "Your Building" > "Your Floor" > Tracking and you should see a live view that shows all your Tracking Tags once they are detected.

floor tracking view live

You can also change to the History view to track the movement of your devices.

If you are interested in Asset Tracking, make sure to read our dedicated chapter on Asset Tracking Usage.

Receiving Sensor Data

If you have enrolled one or more mesh nodes or tags that report sensor data, such as our BlueRange Tag R1, you can now see their reported sensor values.

Navigate to your device through the device list, the network or through the building structure.

tag statistics view

Selected sensor data of your devices will also be aggregated and is shown for the building, floor and room if you have assigned your devices to these entities.

floor overview

Only sensor data of mesh nodes is currently aggregated and your tags will not be shown in the average.

Sensor data can be seen in the portal, collected via MQTT, is historized by our BlueRange server and can be fetched in pre-computed form through our API. Continue with the Sensor Data chapter if you want to know more.

Beaconing

Most of our Mesh Nodes support broadcasting custom Beacon messages such as the Eddystone, iBeacon or the BlueRange Tag format. These messages can be managed by using our platform.

beaconing add adv message

To configure beaconing messages, follow our Beaconing documentation.

You can then use any standard iBeacon scanner such as e.g. the nRF Connect App to scan for these broadcast messages after they were configured.

Beacon Scanning & Reporting

Sometimes, you really want to know what is going around. IoT devices are virtually everywhere and a large number of them speak Bluetooth Low Energy. Our platform allows you to configure a number of mesh nodes (or all of them) to scan for surrounding beaconing messages. We have implemented some simple filter mechanisms to give you the ability to select the beaconing messages that you are interested in.

beacon reporting node config new b

Follow the dedicated guide on Beacon Scanning here for some detailed steps on how to set everything up.