Table of contents
- The cost of beacon battery replacement
- The process of replacing beacon batteries
- The next step: start saving beacons’ battery life!
When you are deploying a beacon fleet, time is short, and there are so many things to do, saving beacons’ battery life doesn’t always sound like a priority. The average lifespan of a beacon – two to three years – seems long, so either you don’t give it much thought, or you put off beacon battery saving for some other time in the future. The trouble is, if you don’t optimize the energy consumption as soon as possible, you may be surprised how quickly your beacons’ batteries drain, and how much it costs you.
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The cost of beacon battery replacement
It’s very likely that you budgeted beacon or battery replacements two years down the line. But are you sure that the configuration of your devices and the environment they’re deployed in enables them to last that long?
The more energy your beacons consume, the more often you have to replace the batteries. $2 per a single cell coin battery isn’t much, but when your fleet consists of hundreds or even thousands of beacons, the costs will rise significantly.They will increase even more if your beacons’ casings aren’t openable as then you’ll have to replace the devices themselves. While you’re aware this will be necessary at some point down the line, don’t let it happen in the first year.
Replacing a beacon fleet in the middle of an estimated lifetime will make your deployment less sustainable, and less profitable. Make sure you don’t have to cover the replacements sooner than you actually need (or planned) to.
The process of replacing beacon batteries
Beacons are not all created equal. They run on different configuration values, are deployed in different conditions, and so on. As a result, they won’t all die at the same time, which is actually both good and bad news.
On the plus side, even if you miss a notification that your beacon’s battery level is low and the battery eventually drains, there’s a chance that some beacon-enabled features in your app will keep working. If the entire fleet died at the same time, the app would stop triggering all proximity-aware content.
On the other hand, it means you can’t replace your batteries all at once. You’ll need to visit your venue a few times to replace all your batteries. This may be inconvenient and time-consuming, especially when replacing beacons deployed at different locations. And given that your beacons are usually firmly attached to the walls or ceilings (which makes a lot of sense in terms of the devices’ security), it may be even more troublesome.
If your beacons consume energy too fast, you may end up needing to hire someone exclusively dedicated to replacing beacons or batteries. Are you ready for such an investment at your stage of deployment?
The next step: start saving beacons’ battery life!
When your beacon infrastructure is expanding across the world, bringing you millions of dollars in revenue, conserving your beacons’ battery life may not be a priority to you anymore (although we still suggest it should be). When you’re at the pilot or proof of concept stage, though, all of these scenarios may significantly decrease your ROI and eventually break your project.
Don’t let that happen.
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Ready to start saving your beacons’ battery lives? Check out our guide on how quickly and easily to do this today:
