Seeking Professional Opinion on Long Range Bluetooth

Prodigy 20 points
Chis Stone

We are trying to determine the legitimacy of a company's claims that they have a Bluetooth locator device (like the Tile, TrackR, etc..) that has a 500 feet range. The company in question is Del Marth and the product is called Stonetether.

A backer for the project recently mentioned the TI CC2592 2.4-GHz Range Extender; yet I don't see this being able to be used in the very small form factor of the Stonetether device, or that the battery would last one year (a CR2016 battery) powering the extender.

The backers of this Kickstarter believe we have been scammed and there is no way to achieve what this company claims.

Would greatly appreciate it if someone with some experience in this area could offer their opinion.

www.kickstarter.com/.../description

Prodigy 20 points
Chis Stone
  • Guru 234620 points
    YiKai Chen
    According to my experiences and study on power consumption of RF chips, I think it is a scam.

    If my post answers your question, please click on "Verify Answer" button to benefit others who have the same issue.

    YK Chen

  • Mastermind 40165 points
    Fredrik K
    Hi Chis,

    I agree with Yikai, it does not sound realistic. With the CC2590 (10 dBm variant of CC2592, more BLE friendly) at both sides of your link, you should be able to achieve 1500 ft. line of sight communication with BLE. However, when communicating with a phone, the phone's output power and sensitivity will limit your range. A 2016 coincell will not be able to source the required current for CC2590 anyway.

    They also have some ridicules comments on their page, like this one: "How do you achieve a distance of 500 feet? - It's simple. We use a proprietary antenna and power delivery system. Almost no other tracker previously released uses an antenna." Of course other systems uses an antenna. With the size constraints, there are not reason StoneTether should have any performance gain in their antenna system.

    Cheers,
    Fredrik

    --
    PS. Thank you for clicking  Verify Answer below if this answered your question!

  • Prodigy 10 points
    Jeff Lonzo

    Followup questions for the two that answered (I can't see your names; sorry)

    1.  Would cell phone capability be an issue if the phone is only receiving a signal (but not transmitting back)?

    2.  If the unit only transmitted intermittantly (e.g., 1 sec every 10 sec) would powering a range extender from a "coin" battery still be an issue?

    (Since most uses of the device will be to track the location of stationary (or mostly stationary) objects, continual broadcast by the device would not be necessary.)

     

    Thanks in advance for your replies.

     

     

  • Guru 234620 points
    YiKai Chen

    In reply to Jeff Lonzo:

    1. Yes, different receiver has different RX sensitivity and it makes differences on radio coverage.
    2. Yes, coin battery only provide limited peak current. If you use range extender with large TX power, it would drain large power when doing TX/RX with coin battery. According to my experiences, CR2032/CR2016 cannot stand such large current drain.

    If my post answers your question, please click on "Verify Answer" button to benefit others who have the same issue.

    YK Chen

  • Prodigy 20 points
    Chis Stone
    Update - Thank you all for your replies and answers. Ehrien Marth, the founder of the company Del Marth has sold his home which was also used as the business address, and is not giving any new contact information. $366,000 collected with no product shipped.

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