GPS.at finds your drill with intelligent cloud Bluetooth tracking

Many companies are well organized and set up within the company. However, when it comes to the traceability of machines, tools and expensive small appliances in the field and on construction sites, this is much more difficult and involves considerably more effort. Many small appliances are used on different construction sites and it is easy to lose track of hundreds of appliances. Often enough, machines, attachments or expensive small appliances disappear from construction sites because different companies are working at the same time and mix-ups occur – either deliberately or accidentally. As a result, new tools and small appliances have to be purchased regularly.

GPS.at has combined GPS tracking with Bluetooth technology to digitally monitor even small machines and tools. Bluetooth beacons – small, stable Bluetooth transmitters – are attached to construction machinery and tools for this purpose. The Bluetooth beacons – also known as Bluetooth tags – send a unique identifier and additional information to the GPS tracking devices and, together with the GPS tracking, the software user in the construction company can call up the last location and the history of the Bluetooth transmitter’s movements in the GPS Fleet software. In addition to the location, the motion sensor integrated in many Bluetooth beacons is particularly interesting because it can be used to determine whether a machine is being moved or not.

Ideally, a drill with a Bluetooth beacon is monitored digitally throughout: In the building yard, it is recorded by a stationary GPS tracking device. An alarm can be triggered when leaving the building yard. The GPS tracking device in the transport vehicle then detects the drilling machine and takes it to a construction site. On the construction site, a GPS device mounted on the construction site container can locate the drilling machines in the surrounding area. The advantage of this seamless digitalization lies in the simpler traceability. The company has an immediate overview of where the tool is located and whether it is still at the building yard or already on the construction site. The same tracking of the transport route is possible for transport containers or rubble skips.

The Bluetooth transmitters used are based on Bluetooth Low Energy, a wireless technology familiar from smartphones that allows devices in the immediate vicinity to network. Compared to conventional Bluetooth, BLE is more energy-efficient. This means that Bluetooth beacons can send data for several years before they need to be replaced.

Markus Häusler, Managing Director of GPS.at, says: “Tracking via Bluetooth is already familiar from smartphones and has often been picked up by the media through smartphone contact tracing. The advantage of our Bluetooth solution is that we digitize valuable tools and small machines and do not track people with them, thus increasing efficiency in the handling of small devices.”

No smartphones are required, which makes monitoring the small devices simpler, more stable and more cost-effective than using smartphones. With smartphones, employees would have to activate or operate a corresponding app and data protection concerns would quickly arise. It also depends on the smartphone and the willingness of the user whether the app is running at all or simply whether the smartphone is switched on and nearby.

GPS.at also has a solution for this. GPS tracking devices in vehicles or on larger construction equipment such as vibratory plates can be actively located. This is not possible with small devices and tools due to the size of the Bluetooth beacons. But by expanding an ever-growing fleet of GPS tracking devices with Bluetooth enabled, GPS.at can centrally advertise tools that a customer has reported lost for tracking via other customers’ vehicle fleets. The solution is based on the use of a large number of tracking devices, a kind of “cloud Bluetooth tracking”. If the lost machine happens to be detected by another GPS tracking device on another construction site or on the road, the owner of the machine is notified with the time and last location.