Beacon usage

Configure beacons

The automatic trip detection feature is compliant with iBeacon Bluetooth beacons. A beacon is a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) device that broadcasts a universally unique identifier. This signal can be detected by the SDK and used to trigger the trip analysis.

In addition, the beacon is a smart and cost-effective solution for identifying the vehicle in which the driver is travelling.

The DriveKit SDK is fully compatible with the Apple iBeacon™ standard.

You can add beacon identifiers to Trip Analysis module by calling the following method:

DriveKitTripAnalysis

fun setBeacons(beacons: List<BeaconData>)

A detailed description of BeaconData class is available here.

If you want to ignore major and minor values for trip detection, set them to -1.

If you want to remove beacons from SDK configuration, just call the method with an empty array.

Beacon required

To avoid the recording of unwanted trips (trips performed outside the vehicle where the beacon is placed), it is possible to automatically cancel the trip if the beacon is not "seen" several times during the trip. Generally, a trip will be cancelled in less than 6 minutes if the beacon is not in the vehicle.

By default, this setting is disabled but you can enable it by calling the following method:

DriveKitTripAnalysis

fun setBeaconRequired(required: Boolean)

To disable this settings, call the same method with the parameter set to false

If you have configured the beacon and the bluetooth device as required, trips will be recorded if at least a beacon or a bluetooth device is detected during the trip.

Filter the beacon trigger to start trip recording

In very rare cases, it may be useful to avoid trip detection using the beacon but still need to validate the trip recording only if the beacon is near the smartphone during the trip.

In this case, the beacon is used in trip validation mode but not in trip detection mode.

If this advanced configuration is not used correctly, it may result in poor trip detection performance.

Please never use this feature without contacting DriveQuant to explain your use case and ensure that this particular mode is mandatory.

How does it work?

By default, if you have configured a beacon, its detection by the SDK will start a trip analysis.

In very rare cases (e.g. beacon in a vehicle and parked in close proximity to a living area), it might be useful to avoid the SDK to start a trip when a beacon is detected to reduce smartphone battery consumption.

Please note that beacon scan checks are always performed during the trip analysis, even if the configuration is called.

To disable the ability to start a trip analysis when a beacon is detected by DriveKit, you can call the following method:

DriveKitTripAnalysis

var allowBeaconTripStart: Boolean

This feature has no effect if the automatic trip detection mode is disabled.