Education: How to Monitor Device Location to Keep Things Running Smoothly
19/01/2022
Learning environments are hectic from the very first class to the last. You have a mixture of students, staff, and visitors coming and going on a regular basis. From a safety and productivity point of view, knowing your staff are in the right place at the right time can be a tricky task to get right.
So, today – in our latest Education Pain Points blog - we’re going to discuss the use of indoor and outdoor positioning – solutions that allow you to track the location of your two-way radio devices, helping you to react to events in real-time and allocate tasks in a smarter way.
Indoor positioning
We’ll start off with indoor positioning and explain how it works and how it benefits you as an educational facility.
In scenarios where it’s beneficial to know where your radio users are inside your building, indoor positioning makes monitoring their location as easy as 1,2,3.
With the use of Bluetooth beacons – that are strategically placed inside your building space – you can track the location of your two-way radio devices in real-time, giving you access to a range of benefits. These include:
- Locating somebody’s whereabouts quickly
- Allocating a task to someone in close proximity to where work needs to be completed
- Responding to everyday or emergency situations in a timely fashion
- Having peace of mind that your workforce is safe on the job
- Benefitting from real-time device location updates
This solution is ideal for facilities and maintenance teams who spend their day in different locations across your site and would benefit from quick, reliable communication with their counterparts – utilising real-time data in the process.
What are Bluetooth beacons?
Bluetooth beacons are small devices that emit signals to Bluetooth-compatible devices (in this case a digital two-way radio) and the radio picks up these signals.
Placing them across your building space (next to certain facilities for example) will allow you to see where your radios are in terms of proximity to the beacons, giving you an accurate overview of where people are and when.
They tend to be inexpensive and use low amounts of energy, so they won’t break the bank when it comes to implementing them.
Outdoor positioning
Now we move onto outdoor positioning, where it’s what’s on the outside (of your indoor space) that counts.
Outdoor positioning, as it suggests on the tin, helps you keep track of device location in your outside areas. This is achieved by using GPS signal and geofences – a solution that allows you to create pre-defined geographical areas that cover your outside spaces – to work out when someone is in the right location.
You can also set up alerts to be triggered to a dispatch system or another radio device when an end user enters a geofenced area, making it easier to contact them at important times throughout the day.
What is a geofence?
A geofence is a virtual parameter that is used to map out a real-world geographical area. This virtual boundary makes a separation between an area you want to track and the space around it that you don’t wish to track.
This can be used to know when one of your facilities and maintenance team is entering an area where they need to repair something within the geofence, and when they exit the perimeter.
Two solutions, one interface
Digital radios have become a go-to solution in the Education sector. Part of this is down to the fact that two-way radios have a range of smart features and software that offer seamless and reliable voice and data capabilities.
If you were to use indoor and outdoor positioning, your radios would automatically switch from pairing with Bluetooth beacons to GPS monitoring, giving you a seamless solution that works every time your end users walk through the door and back out of it.
From an interface perspective, you need just one dispatch control system (desktop device) to monitor both indoor and outdoor positioning. When end users are indoors, you’ll be able to see their location on a detailed floor plan, and when they’re outside, you’ll be able to see their location on open street maps.
Book a FREE Demonstration
This article provides a snapshot of what indoor and outdoor positioning is, and the benefits it can have for your facility.
If you want to find out more about indoor and outdoor positioning in more detail, then book a FREE demonstration of our award-winning TRBOCALL system and we’ll show you how indoor and outdoor positioning works and how it will benefit your facility going forward.
Complete our online enquiry form, via our contact us page, and we’ll arrange a demonstration at a time that suits you.
News Archive
05/02/2024
31/01/2024
22/12/2023
22/12/2023
22/11/2023
10/11/2023
27/10/2023
26/10/2023
22/09/2023
31/08/2023
09/05/2023
23/12/2022
30/11/2022
28/01/2021
14/09/2020
15/06/2020
22/05/2020
18/12/2019
31/07/2018
20/02/2018
05/10/2017
See What Our Clients Say
“Eemits Communications has been a long-time partner of Whitby Seafoods. Their single-site conventional digital repeater system has driven daily efficiency and given us greater on-site access control. We appreciate their continued commitment to customer satisfaction and look forward to what the future holds.”
"We have a great and longstanding working relationship with Eemits and they have always ticked every box. They offer an excellent, friendly and reliable service.
Eemits have a great understanding of the park and its needs for the customer and our retailers. With a positive can-do attitude, they never say no."
"We started working with Eemits following on from a recommendation from another customer. They provided us with a solution that suits our needs and they continue to supply the best service with no issues.
Eemits is a professional, friendly and reliable company."
"Eemits continue to provide us with a great supportive service consistently being very helpful. The whole team is great and it's very clear the staff have a great knowledge of the products and are happy to pass this on.
Eemits is a great company."
"The service offered by Eemits is second to none, we have a great working relationship with them and the contract we have is good value for money."
"We needed two-way radios for the guys on the test track and something that was scalable. The solution Eemits provided was far superior in comparison to other competitors offerings.
Everything is done in-house and the service and sales department is particularly good. As masters in their field they are extremely knowledgeable."
"Eemits dedicate a lot of time to us as a customer - we feel like we get a personal touch. They're excellent and go above and beyond. They'll put the work in - i.e. training users.
Good quality, good people, good team, all of who are positive about their company. They demonstrate real passion."
"The quality of service that Eemits provides is excellent. The team is very knowledgeable and they offer high quality products. The TRBOCALL solution fitted meets our site requirements and upgrades our technology.
Lone worker function is particularly useful allowing us to monitor our staff ensuring they are safe at all times."
"Eemits Communication is friendly, professional and competitive. They are excellent and their workmanship and knowledge is great.
Eemits attitude sets them apart - no problem is too big"
"Prior to the installation of our current system onsite communications were poor. Eemits Communications offered us guidance and advice on the different technologies available and delivered a highly effective system on time and within our budget. Its success has led to other departments using the system."
"Eemits Communications Ltd have been involved in work at Hartlepool Power Station for over 10 years now. During this time they have installed an Aerial network through our buildings to enable more efficient internal radio communications.
I have found the staff highly professional at all times and willing to provide help whenever they can, I would have no hesitation in recommending this company."
"Having previously worked with Eemits, we knew that we were dealing with a supplier that we could trust and one that could help us to significantly increase the safety of our lone workers with its unique solutions.
The equipment supplied by Eemits is excellent. We have been greatly impressed by the knowledge and skills of their engineers who have carried out the onsite surveys and installation of the system.
Eemits came up with an innovative approach to overcome challenges that we had with installing a system with the structure of our building, and as such, the quality of radio frequency is outstanding."
"The service delivered by Eemits has been excellent and we have developed a very good working relationship over the years.
As a local business to Falck Fire Services they can respond to faults or general requests very quickly - which is very important in our line of work - whereas similar suppliers have a greater response time.
TRBOCALL is an overall platform that has made a massive improvement to our communications in comparison to the analogue system that we had been using for many years. It provides us with many different applications that can be utilised across the business.
Since introducing TRBOCALL we have seen significant improvements related to safety and in our communications itself, which is critical to our operations."