Manual

47
3.6.3. Beacon Mini-TX
The Mini-TX is a TX only beacon, i.e. it can transmit, but cannot
receive ultrasound.
Comparison to Beacon HW v4.9:
- Smaller size and lighter: 47x42x15mm & 25g vs.
55x55x33mm & 62g (or 55x55x64mm with antenna)
- TX only, i.e. Mini-TX can only transmit ultrasonic and
cannot receive. Beacon HW v4.9 is dual use: can receive and transmit ultrasonic
- Battery – 250mAh vs. 1000mAh in a regular beacon. But Mini-TX has a new more
efficient ultrasonic TX module, thus, battery lifetime in TX mode is even superior to
the Beacon HW v4.9
- Tested battery lifetime with 8Hz – 96h. With lower update rate – nearly
proportionally longer. Very efficient ultrasonic TX module
- Mini-TX has only USB (virtual UART) output – no additional pins
- Mini-TXs always have embedded IMU – newer and better, but it has 3D
accelerometer and 3D gyroscope, but no magnetometer (which we do not
recommend using indoors anyway, due to magnetic field distortion indoor)
- Embedded antenna – smaller size, but smaller radio coverage ~50m with regular
Modem HW v4.9 as compared with ~100m of Beacon HW v4.9 with Modem HW
v4.9
- Range in ultrasonic is virtually on par with regular Beacon HW v4.9 – up to 30m with
Beacon HW v4.9 as RX beacon. At the same time, for example, a combination of
Mini-RX RX beacon + Mini-TX TX provide a better coverage and a stronger signal,
than Beacon HW v4.9 + Beacon HW v4.9
- This HW is for the 868/915MHz band only, i.e. 433MHz is not supported and not
planned