Overview

Digital Matter Wi-Fi Beacons improve indoor location fidelity by broadcasting a known MAC address that Location Engine devices can reliably detect, especially in Wi-Fi lookup black spots.

Indoor RF is highly variable. Building materials, multi-path, interference, and day-to-day environmental changes can significantly affect detection and positioning outcomes. Beacon parameters let you tune performance to the site.

When updating the parameters, you are balancing:

• Detection reliability: Beacons heard during scan windows.
   
• Coverage / radius of influence: Range vs. room/zone separation.
   
• Location accuracy: Especially for trilateration.
   
• Battery life: Broadcast interval and TX power dominate.
   
• 2.4 GHz coexistence: Airtime and channel contention.
   

The Digital Matter Wi-Fi Beacon allows you to adjust the TX power, interval frequency, channel, and Wi-Fi rate to fit these trade-offs. 

The defaults are appropriate for most scenarios. Only tune parameters when you have a clear detection, overlap, airtime, or battery-life objectives.

Wi-Fi Beacon parameters and why they matter

Beacon interval (ms)

What it changes: How often the beacon transmits.

Why update it?

• Improve detection in short scan windows: Long intervals increase the chance a scan finishes before a beacon is heard.
   
• Reduce RF congestion: Short intervals increase airtime and collision probability in dense deployments.
   
• Extend battery life: Interval is one of the largest drivers of battery life (especially when combined with higher TX power).

Channel

What it changes: Which 2.4 GHz channel the beacon uses.

Why update it?

• Avoid co-channel interference: Selecting a less congested channel can materially improve detection consistency.
   
• Reduce overlap between nearby beacon “cells”: Channel planning helps in high-density layouts, particularly when trackers scan only specific channels.

The DM Wi-Fi beacon supports 2.4 GHz channels 1–11 (default 11). 

Separately, Location Engine devices using Private Scans (Adv) Parameters can be configured to scan specific channels (1–14 valid) to improve private network detection performance.

We recommend identifying channels that best coexist with the site’s existing Wi-Fi plan (often 1/6/11) and align beacon channel choice with what your devices actually scan, especially if you’re using Private Scans channel filtering.

TX power

What it changes: Signal strength, impacting range and penetration.

Why update it?

• Control radius of influence for accuracy: For trilateration, target a beacon influence radius of roughly 10–15 m. Larger zones increase ambiguity and can reduce accuracy.
   
• Improve detection through obstacles: Higher TX power can help in cluttered or wall-heavy environments, but increases overlap with adjacent beacons.
   
• Battery trade-off: Higher TX power reduces battery life considerably. A better strategy may be to review both power and interval settings together.

The DM Wi-Fi Beacon max broadcast power is 20 dBm (default 15 dBm).

• Use a lower Tx power for tighter room/zone separation (with sufficient beacon density).
   
• Use a higher Tx power to penetrate obstructions or cover open areas, then manage spacing to limit overlap.

Note: In the Private Lookups Wi-Fi Access Points dataset, changing TX power adjusts the assumed transmit power for the beacon and can intentionally bias the inferred distance (appear closer/further) from the same RSSI. Random Path Loss Exponent and Random noise adjustments can also be made here.

Wi-Fi rate (1M, 2M, 6.5M)

What it changes: PHY/modulation rate, affecting robustness and airtime per transmission.

Supported rates: 1 Mbit/s, 2 Mbit/s (default), 6.5 Mbit/s (802.11b/g).

Why update it?

• Robustness vs. airtime: Lower rates are generally more robust at the edge of coverage and through obstacles, but consume more airtime. Higher rates reduce airtime but typically require better signal conditions.
   
• High-density deployments: Rate and interval tuning together can reduce collisions and improve coexistence.

Guideline:

• Use 2M as the baseline (default).
   
• Move to 1M when the environment is harsh and you need maximum robustness.
   
• Move to 6.5M when signal conditions are strong and airtime efficiency matters.