Calibrating a beacon

Calibration tells beacbeac how strong this specific beacon's signal is at one metre. Without that reference, the visitor app has to guess the distance — and guesses produce false triggers (wrong artwork appears) or missed triggers (nothing appears).

When calibration happens

Calibration is a step inside the pairing flow (see Pairing a beacon). beacbeac handles it for you the first time you pair a beacon — you don't open it from a separate menu.

During calibration:

1. Stand one metre from the beacon, in its final mounted position.
2. Hold your phone at chest height.
3. beacbeac samples the signal for about three seconds and averages the readings.
4. The averaged value is saved as the beacon's measured power.

When to recalibrate

The original calibration is usually fine for the life of the beacon. Recalibrate if:

• You moved the beacon to a different spot.
• You changed how it's mounted (e.g. behind glass, into a metal frame).
• Visitors are reporting the wrong artwork triggering, or no artwork triggering, and other causes (see Troubleshooting signal) are ruled out.

To recalibrate, pair the beacon again from the Manage Beacons screen. Repairing replaces the saved measured power with a fresh reading.

Manually tuning TX Power

The beacon edit screen has a TX Power (dBm) field that you can adjust by hand. Most operators should leave this alone — beacbeac sets a sensible default during pairing. Change it only if you're confident with iBeacon tuning and you've measured a better value.

Testing your calibration

After calibrating:

1. Walk away from the beacon until the artwork disappears from the visitor app.
2. Walk back slowly — the artwork should reappear at the distance you'd expect a visitor to naturally stop and look.
3. If it's triggering too early or too late, recalibrate (or move the beacon).