Track smaller things, without a GPS tracker on each one
Who was driving, worked out for you
Two vans and three people, and everything Yipii measures belongs to the registration plate: the trip, the harsh braking on the Marsa roundabout, the score out of 100. Fit a tag and the same record follows the person instead. There are two ways to do it, and they suit different fleets.
iButton, a deliberate touch
A coin-sized metal tag on a keyring.
The driver touches it to a reader wired to the tracker at the start of a shift. It takes an action, which is exactly why some fleets prefer it: the driver has confirmed who they are, and that is harder to argue with weeks later. There is no battery in it and nothing to charge.
Bluetooth beacon, no action at all
A small battery tag in a pocket or on a lanyard.
The tracker picks it up passively within about 10 m, so nobody has to remember anything. That is what makes it work on a fleet where people swap vans mid-shift. It does have a trade-off. Two tags in one cab and the stronger signal wins, so spare tags belong out of the vehicle.
Then the assignment happens on its own
Whichever tag you fit, nobody logs in and nobody picks a name from a list. The trip and the score land on whoever the tag is assigned to, from the moment a tracker sees it, so the admin work is done once and then stays done. One thing to watch is a tag that is registered but assigned to nobody. It reads Orphaned and identifies no one, which is worth checking before you go hunting for a fault.
See what driver scoring does with the nameOne tracker, many eyes
Different problems deserve different sensors. Pick the one that matches the asset.
iButton driver tags
Contact-based driver ID. The driver touches the tag to a reader wired to the tracker. No battery, nothing to charge, nothing to pair.
Bluetooth beacons
Passive tags picked up by a Yipii tracker within about 10 m. 1 to 2 years from a cell in daily use, and the cell is replaceable.
Eye sensors
Temperature and humidity from inside a load space that has no wired probe. Feeds the temperature alerts and the temperature report.
Smart sensors
Movement, magnet status for a door or a hatch, and pitch and roll for cargo that has tipped on the way.
Near, Away and Lost, with the real numbers
Select a vehicle on the map and open its Beacons tab. Everything that tracker can currently see is listed there, registered or not, grouped by how strong the signal is.
Every detection card carries the tag's UUID with a copy button, the protocol the tracker recognised (iBeacon, Eddystone, Eye Sensor, Smart Sensor or Tag), when it was last seen and which vehicle saw it. Depending on the hardware, it also reports:
Signal, in dBm
The number behind the Near, Away and Lost grouping above.
Battery, in volts
Healthy above 2.8 V. Below 2.0 V, replace the cell. Expect 1 to 2 years from a beacon in daily use.
Temperature and humidity
Sensing beacons only. A temperature of exactly 0 means "not reported" rather than 0 degrees, and a flat cell reports zeroes before it stops entirely.
Movement, magnet and angle
Smart Sensors add movement, magnet status for a door or hatch, and pitch and roll for a load that has shifted.
Claiming one takes no typing. An unregistered beacon shows in the same list with a grey cross. Open its three-dot menu, choose Register, and it is claimed into your account without anyone entering a UUID. Put a bag of beacons in the van, let the tracker find them, then name them one at a time.
Tools that roam between vehicles still stay tracked
Put a beacon on a generator, a breaker or a trailer and Yipii treats it as a portable: an asset with no tracker of its own, located by whichever vehicle can currently see its beacon. The tractor that moved the trailer read it on the way, so the yard sheet is right without anybody writing it down. There is no GPS hardware to buy for each item and no monthly SIM behind it.
- Tag tools, trailers, cages and containers
- Read by a Yipii tracker within about 10 m
- 1 to 2 years from a user-replaceable cell
- Reassigning a tag never destroys its detections
Protect cold chain cargo with the sensor attached to it
Sensing beacons are how Yipii reads temperature inside a load space that has no wired probe. Once one is detected and reporting, temperature above and temperature below alerts can use it, and the temperature report has data to draw. Smart Sensors add movement, magnet status for a door or hatch, and pitch and roll for a load that has shifted on the way.
- Temperature and humidity from sensing beacons
- Magnet status for door and hatch monitoring
- Pitch and roll for cargo that has tipped
- Give the alert a sustained duration, or every delivery door-opening spikes it
What a beacon will not do
With no tracked vehicle nearby, it reports nothing
A beacon has no SIM and no idea where it is. It waits to be seen. Leave a tagged generator on open ground with nothing tracked near it and there is no reading at all until a van comes back.
What you get is proximity: which vehicle had the item and where that vehicle put it down. That answers the Monday-morning question. It is not live location, and we would rather say so now than on the day you go looking.
Signal strength is not a distance measurement
Near, Away and Lost come from dBm, and dBm is affected by metal, water and the human body. A tag in a driver's back pocket can read weaker than one on the far side of the cab.
A beacon that drops to Lost in a loaded van is usually blocked rather than gone. Metal shelving and liquid loads both do it, and moving the beacon higher in the load space brings it back.
Frequently asked
Beacons and tags work for tools, containers, trailers, refrigerated cargo, driver identification, and other non-powered items that travel with or alongside your vehicles. iButton handles driver ID by contact, Bluetooth beacons cover both driver ID and portable equipment, Eye sensors read temperature and humidity, and Smart sensors add movement, magnet status for door monitoring, and pitch and roll for tilt. An item with a beacon and no tracker of its own becomes a portable: an asset located by whichever vehicle can currently see its beacon.
No. iButton tags are contact tags with no battery in them, so there is nothing to charge. Bluetooth beacons and Eye sensors run on a replaceable cell that lasts 1 to 2 years in daily use, and Yipii reports the voltage: healthy above 2.8 V, due for replacement below 2.0 V. The one thing that does need switching on is the tracker. BLE Beacons has to be enabled for that vehicle under Diagnostics, and the setting goes to the device over the air, so allow a few minutes for it to land.
A Yipii tracker picks up a Bluetooth beacon passively within about 10 m and logs it against the vehicle that saw it, with no action from the driver. Open the Beacons tab on that asset and everything the tracker can currently see is listed, registered or not, grouped by signal strength: Near is stronger than -60 dBm, Away is -60 to -80 dBm, and Lost is weaker than -80 dBm. Read those as in, nearby, or drifting, never as metres, because metal, water and the human body all weaken the signal. iButton tags are detected instead through physical contact with a reader wired to the tracker.
Detection events flow into the same platform as GPS tracking. Tags show up in the asset sidebar, on the live map when near a tracker, and in reports (Environment and Portable report types specifically cover beacon activity). A tag assigned to a person attributes trips to them automatically, so driver scoring and behaviour reports update without anyone logging in or picking a name. A tag assigned to equipment turns it into a portable. Reassigning or unassigning a tag later keeps every detection it has already logged.
The rest of the picture
Registering a tag step by step, including the assignment table and the troubleshooting list, is written out in the beacons and tags guide in the Yipii IoT docs.