Benefits of BLE Based Student Tracking for Schools & Parents

Children's safety has grown to be the most important global issue nowadays. Every now and then we hear about a misplaced child. The rate has enormously increased in the past few years.

The other situation might also happen, the student has left the for school but hasn't reached. So, where might have he/she gone in between? What unusual activity might be going on?

Parents are always concerned about their children's safety. Their concern is also justified as their children spend most of the time in school, as school plays an important role in their life.

Taking advantage of developing technology, BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) based tracking tried and implemented in schools and colleges to track students.

The name of the technology only indicates the consumption of low energy than normal Bluetooth.

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What is BLE?

BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) is a low energy consuming Bluetooth. The technology was created back in 2001, to offer low-energy and low-cost wireless protocols.

At the start, it didn't accelerate but after 2011 with its inclusion in smartphones, it started to grow exponentially.

As fulfilling the criteria of low power consumption, the data transfer rate of BLE is 1/10th of Bluetooth and latency is 5x of standard Bluetooth.

How Does BLE based Student Tracking Work?

The working of the BLE beacons technology is very simple and easy to understand. First, all the students will be provided with an ID card containing BLE and MAC (Media Access Control) IDs.

The following purpose will help you understand the BLE based student tracking:

For Marking Attendance

• Whenever the student enters the school premise, the BLE reader placed there will read their IDs.
  
  
• Then match it to the already existing data in the database and mark the student's attendance.

For Transportation

• Whenever the student enters a school bus, the BLE reader placed there will read their IDs.
  
  
• Through GSM module, parents will get notified in their app, that their child has entered in the school bus.
  
  
• The same kind of notification will be sent again when the child gets off the bus.
  
  
• Information will also be delivered; in case the child has got down on the wrong stop.
  
  
• Or if there would be any delay in reaching, the bus staff will inform the parents as well as the school.

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What are the Benefits of BLE based Student Tracking?

There are several benefits of BLE based student tracking to complete the purpose of the safety of students.

It also assures the parents for their child's safety by giving them more power by providing their real-time location information even while their child is commuting on the school bus.

Following are the benefits of BLE based student tracking:

1. Real-time location

The parents will always get notified about the accurate time of boarding and de-boarding, along with the stops name.

Whether the child has boarded/de-boarded the registered designated stop or not. Or even if they have waited for too long for the bus to board, especially in extreme weather conditions.

2. Better Safety

As the system is built with the highest of the technology, it delivers better safety for your child. All the student's data is saved on the cloud therefore it delivers accurate information, making the system more secure.

3. Better Control

Being every detail and data on the cloud, the system gives you better access to the operations and services. The built-in features give better control to the school and operators for transport operations and the related efficiency.

4. Notifications

The system is fully-fledged to provide notifications to the parents about where being of their child. They are notified of all the activities done by the students.

Whether it is pick-up and drop-off the school bus or entering the classroom i.e., their attendance; every time the student's IDs are scanned parents will get notified.

Not only parents but even school will be notified for the late follow-up of the students, either it is a late entry in the class or late pick-up and drop-off or in a condition when a school bus is running late due to traffic or bad weather.

5. Touch-less Access

The student tracking system uses BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) iBeacon sensors that are attached to the student's ID card. These IDs act as a tracking device for a student's check-in/check-out.

The whole process is touch-less, every time the student check-in/check-out their IDs are scanned by the reader and the details are tallied with the existing data then the notification is sent.

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6. Actual Reporting

All the reporting which is done is according to real-time information i.e., all the information send via notifications is precise and accurate. Parents receive all the route information and reports so that they can manage their schedules accordingly for their children's pickups.

7. Real-time Tracking

All the information received, delivered and saved is in real-time. The system provides real-time student tracking so that parents can track the school bus in real-time, when & where it arrives to notice pick-up and drop-off time.

8. Route-details

Parents, school and bus drivers can view all the route details heading towards school or the student's pick-up stations. When the bus driver changes its regular route due to any reason like traffic, from the driver's input all parents and school will get notified about the current route taken.

9. Emergency SOS

Student's safety is the first and foremost priority, therefore the system allows the emergency SOS in case of any difficulty. This emergency SOS is sent to both parents and school.

For example, if the bus suffers a breakdown so an emergency SOS will be sent to the school as well as all the parents so that they can pick-up their child from the location.

10. Accurate Data Capture

All the data is captured and delivered in real-time. The system works with the details on the cloud, it gets regularly updated, automatically with the location of the students, delivering the real-time data and information.

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Conclusion

The BLE based student tracking system is proven to be a better solution for student tracking than RFID. As each of the students' parents will know about their child, whether he/she is attending the class or not, reached the school or not, or about any other unusual activity going on outside school premises.

The student tracking system has given more leverage to parents to know about their child's activities in and out of the school premises. In any condition, parents will be informed about their children's activities.