Wi-Fi Positioning
Using Wi-Fi positioning, our personal duress alarms can determine your location whenever they are within range of your existing Wi-Fi network, even when deep within buildings where a GPS signal is unavailable.
Each Wi-Fi access point emits a unique identifier known as a MAC address. By pre-loading the MAC addresses of each access point and its physical location into our online platform, we can locate duress alarms using the MAC addresses that are within range. This is very useful for locating employees on large sites that have pre-existing Wi-Fi installations. For example, Schools, Universities, Hotels, Shopping Centres, Hospitals and Office towers.
How it works
In order for our reporting platform to recognise your WiFi access points, the MAC address, a descriptive name and the location of each must be preloaded into our online platform.
IT departments often have this information readily available. Alternatively, a Wi-Fi survey may need to be conducted for the target building/site. The MAC address is typically printed on the underside of the Wi-Fi access point.
Note: Our duress alarms only detect and report Wi-Fi access points broadcasting on the 2.4GHz frequency band. 5GHz access points will not be detected.
Wi-Fi positioning must be enabled for your specific device(s). This is configured remotely, over the air, and can be turned on or off depending on your needs. By default, this setting is disabled to maximise battery life. When Wi-Fi positioning is enabled, you can expect a 10-20% reduction in the operating time of the device.
After Wi-Fi positioning is enabled, our duress alarms report the strongest 3 Wi-Fi access points within range. The device does not need to be connected to the Wi-Fi network in order to detect the Wi-Fi access point’s MAC address. This information is routinely broadcast by all Wi-Fi access points.
When the online platform recognises a MAC address, the descriptive location is shown in the details pane together with the detected GPS location.
If there are multiple Wi-Fi access points within range, the top 3 will be listed along with their relative Wi-Fi signal strength.
For more information about Wi-Fi positioning, please get in touch via the Contact page.