Hi.
I'm currently working on a small project to try and get live position tracking on the devices we have at a hospital I work at. since we're all tired here of playing hide and seek every time we go looking for them.
I've been trying to use an Arduino 33 IOT to prototype this. as its a very small board that could easily be fitted on to most of our equipment, while also being cheep (we have a lot of things that would ideally have trackers)
the concept is simple enough. just the standard Wi-Fi based position tracking scaled up to work in a large building. but I've run into a problem. the Wi-Fi signals at our hospital is all 5Ghz. and the Arduino Nano only seems to work with 2.4Ghz.
is there any equally small alternatives to the Arduino Nano 33 IOT that works with 5Ghz? or better yet, any way to make the Nano work with 5Ghz? even if its a separate addon board?
please remember. this needs to be small. its supposed to sit on the outside surface of medical equipment. it cant be this massive power hog that requires a big box to fit and active ventilation. something the size of the Arduino Nano itself. plus maybe a small addon board. is really the limit here. something like the shield for example. is far too big.
many thanks in advance
note: the Wi-Fi policies are controlled on a regional level. so any changes here would have to also include all the other hospitals in the region. a fairly big undertaking at this point. so simply changing the frequency of some of the networks is not an option. it would also probably violate some national guidelines somewhere at this point.
I'm not aware of a reasonably priced compact board that supports 5GHz WiFi. Even the Raspberry Pi Zero boards are 2.4GHz only. You'll have a hard time finding hardware for your special setup.
Do mobile phones get a cellular signal inside the building?
If so you could use cellular triangulation and communication.
Perhaps even just an app on a mobile phone that periodically calculates its location using 5GHz WiFi triangulation then sends a location message via WiFi. No cellular signal or Arduino required.
mobile atleast used to be last time i checked. very spotty. i can maybe recheck this now tho. our IT department has been doing a lot of modernizing, which included upgrading all wifi signals to 5Ghz and adding 4G repeaters. so maybe.
thanks for the suggestion. but... how'd i go about using those signal? can the Arduino nano 33 IOT pick up cellular signals?
well this isn't in the US. its in Europe. so the regulatory organs for the healthcare sector aren't chronically afraid of anything wireless. only place i can think of that would be a big no no are the MRI labs. but that equipment is all specialty MRI stuff anyway and doesn't ever leave the MRI lab so its fine. it doesn't need tracking.
eh, apple isn't really known for allowing third party devs to poke around in their system's guts. we'd like to send the position data to our internal equipment management software. plus I somehow doubt apple had a entire hospital with several thousand individual pieces of equipment all in close proximity to one another in mind when designing the system. might look into it. they were surprisingly cheep. but probably not.
This is a challenging project for sure, especially since you want to scale it to thousands of devices. Personally I think it would be easier to use a ready made, probably proprietary, solution.
An internet search turned up this option: SB1100 Asset Beacon with 2-5 year estimated battery life according to the fact sheet.
Moving/mobile devices (Android/iOS/something else that can run the Zebra SDK) are needed to collect beacon data and deliver it to the Zebra MotionWorks management software.
Not cheap I'm sure.
Perhaps analyse it first and decide if you can DIY better.
I have look. belive me i have looked. there simply aren't any good solutions for hospitals rn. they ether require too frequent battery changes. are physically massive. way too expensive per unit. or requires specialty infrastructure throughout the entire building to work.
in this case some googling seems to show they go for 700-1000$ per unit. and require Bluetooth transponders throughout the entire building.
bit defeatist no?
I'm not looking for the Arduino forum to solve all the problems related to tracking. im asking for a 5G alternative to Arduino nano 33 IOT.
If you think explaining that distance measurement in particular and location in general using radio is generally impractical, is being "defeatist", then you are simply not comprehending the nature of the problem.
AFAIK, "5G" is a cellular phone system and an Arduino Nano 33 IOT is a WiFi device. 5G will be reasonably expensive at present, with few if any modem modules available. But that is in no way whatsoever related to distance measurement and location.
If you think explaining that distance measurement in particular and location in general using radio is generally impractical, is being "defeatist", then you are simply not comprehending the nature of the problem.
AFAIK, "5G" is a cellular phone system and an Arduino Nano 33 IOT is a WiFi device. 5G will be reasonably expensive at present, with few if any modem modules available. But that is in no way whatsoever related to distance measurement and location.
perhaps. but if you dont try nothings ever gonna change now is it?
and you know what i mean by 5G in reference to a conversation to about a 5Ghz alternative to a wifi board.
