As a iBeacon supplier, I'm really impressed with HA users!

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#1

Don’t know where else to put this feedback, so here it shall go…

We are a beacon seller, and as you might expect, we’ve gotten orders recently from HA users for beacons to work with the new iBeacon Tracker integration.

I have to admit that at first I was very intimidated by the complicated HA terms, etc. It definitely took me a while to digest even the basic concept. Eventually, I set up a test platform of HA myself, so I could get more familiar with it for answering beacon users’ questions. I am still an official HA newbie, but I am gradually building some basic knowledge of HA.

But the main point of this post is to say how much I appreciate the HA users that have contacted me to date. Some of asked questions before ordering, some have asked questions about configuring the beacon, and some have shared their cool project results. But every single one of them has been super efficient in terms of overall communication, asking questions, responding to me after I give them some initial directions, and giving me feedback after their issue/question has been resolved, etc. etc. Also everyone seems to have a pretty good sense of humor.

It’s really has been a very positive experience dealing with you all. So here’s some applause for you!

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

By the way, I’m Thomas, the owner.

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#2

Any chance of a water-resistant door sensor in your future product line? Motion sensing by itself doesn’t let me know the gate is closed again unless it’s still flapping in the wind. I’m currently using one sprayed with a conformal waterproof coating, but not looking forward to battery replacement time.

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#3

We have a door sensor beacon that is IP44 rated. But it is not a part of our retail line at this time. Let me check if we have any samples around. I don’t think we do, so I would have to add some to our next shipment from China.

How many are you interested in ordering if they were roughly $20 each?

I wonder if this is an item that other HA users would be interested in?

#4

Right now I’d only want 2, so hardly a bulk order, and postage to Australia never helps. I have seen other posts on the subject, such as this, so I think there would be demand. I think HA user’s attitude to bluetooth is probably changing now with ESPHome recently providing bluetooth proxy capability to extend range.

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#5

And back at you, it is great to see a supplier helping people with their odd questions, and going out of your way to install HA to get to know it. Well done.

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#6

OK, I am looking into it now. If we have the injected housing available in stock in China, I will import 200 pieces each of the door sensor beacon and also the PIR sensor beacon. Probably will be about a month or more before I receive them (if we have the housings in stock; if it is not in stock, it’s too expensive/risky to place an order for 20,000 injected housings).

Once I have them in hand, I will repost here to remind you. No pressure to buy even a single piece though. I appreciate the general “market interest” info. Sometimes it’s scary to order thousands of pieces of a new product without knowing if people are even interested.

Re Australian postage: I feel your pain. Every time we get an order from Australia, I feel sorry for the buyer. Weird that importers in Australia don’t offer this basic electronic stuff from China. Just this week, we got an order for several pieces of the BCA-280 “Fake Alarm” from Australia. The shipping was more than the cost of the fake alarms (they’re not beacons). Who knows if they have to pay import duties as well! All this trouble and expense for a little black box with a single blinking LED light. :rofl:

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#7

My understanding is still very limited. At least I was able to get the iBeacon Tracker working fairly smoothly.

Next I am going to play around with webhooks to trigger actions. Once I figure that out, I have an idea for an ESP-based beacon scanner that might be really useful for fast-action automations like turning on lights within one second when entering a room, etc. I developed a similar product a few months ago and did some beta testing, but it failed due to a flaw in the ESP (bluetooth and Wifi use the same hardware and antenna so they tend to block each other). I think I might have it figured out now. Stay tuned!

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#8

It sounds like it might be worth you adding a home assistant section into your FAQ; as a minimum it will help people who are searching google for HA / iBeacon options.

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#9

I do already have some user-generated contact on the website. Some project sharing write-ups kindly supplied by HA users:

HA beacon project sharing

But I will try to add some more later. I don’t feel qualified to really tell people much about how to use HA, so I suppose I will just focus on the iBeacon Tracker integration.