Attendee Tracking on Blecon: A Behind‑the‑Booth Look at Our Demo

We recently joined Blecon on their stand at TechEx Europe 2025 in Amsterdam to demo a real‑world tracking solution that began life in construction and translates beautifully to events and large venues. Below is a concise walkthrough of what we built, how it works, and why it matters - distilled from a booth‑side chat between our CTO, James, and Blecon’s CEO, Simon.

The Problem

Remote, sprawling, or temporary sites - think construction projects or exhibition halls - need to know where people are for:

• Security (access awareness and incident response)

• Health & Safety (evacuation, mustering, lone‑worker checks)

• Operations (heatmaps, utilisation, bottlenecks)

These environments are often sparse and off‑grid: no mains power, patchy connectivity, and limited ability to blanket the site with fixed infrastructure.

The Approach (in Plain English)

We place static reference beacons around the site, and give staff personal tracking beacons (or badges) that run the Blecon firmware. As people move, their beacons report proximity to the nearest reference points, generating a continuous picture of location across the space.

Why it’s robust

• Store‑and‑forward device sightings: If a tag briefly comes within range of another device (not just a gateway), it can later upload both its own position and the other device sightings once it reaches a gateway. Result: coverage continuity even through dark zones.

• Battery‑powered everything: Reference beacons use coin‑cell power (Nordic chipset). With sensible configurations, lifetimes are ~2–5 years. Gateways include SIM connectivity, so you don’t need site Wi‑Fi or ethernet.

• Drop‑and‑go deployment: Because devices are small and battery‑backed, we can speed‑run installations—ideal for events or remote sites.

How the Demo Worked

At the show we mirrored a construction layout by placing multiple static beacons around the hall. On the live map, each blue dot represented a reference beacon. Staff wore tracking beacons/badges; as they moved, the system calculated where they were relative to nearby references and produced a real‑time view of movement.

Key capability: Even if someone walks through a low‑coverage zone, their tag shares what it saw when it reconnects—so the system fills in the gaps without saturating the venue in gateways.

Architecture at a Glance

1. Edge layer

   • Reference beacons (coin‑cell, Nordic SoC) placed around the site.

   • Personal tags/badges running Blecon firmware (Nordic SoC).

   • Gateways with integrated SIM for backhaul.

2. Transport

   • BLE to nearby peers/reference points.

   • Uplink from tags/gateways to the cloud (cellular when needed).

3. Cloud & Application layer

   • Data ingestion and processing (time‑series + sightings model).

   • Real‑time dashboards: occupant location, zone heatmaps, congestion.

Alerts & reports: muster lists, dwell‑time, utilisation.

Why Clients Love It

• Works with the real world: Through Blecon’s hardware partners, the tracking capability can be embedded into existing RFID employee badges, keeping workflows unchanged and compatible with current security gates.

• Scales down and up: Start with a handful of beacons and a single gateway; expand to stadium‑scale without ripping up infrastructure.

• Resilient by design: Store‑and‑forward sightings smooth over dead spots; SIM backhaul avoids on‑site network dependencies.

Low maintenance: Multi‑year battery life reduces truck rolls and site interventions.

Practical Uses (Construction & Events)

• Live mustering & emergency response

• Contractor time‑on‑site verification

• Traffic flow & bottleneck analysis (entries, corridors, stairwells)

• Zone occupancy caps & compliance

High‑value asset chaperoning (tools/AV cases with tags)

Lessons from the Field

• Plan for sparsity: Assume power and connectivity are scarce; choose placements that maximise peer‑to‑peer sightings, not just gateway reach.

• Tune cadence vs. battery: Reporting intervals, transmit power, and batching strategies materially change lifetime (2–5 years typical).

Integrate with what’s there: Badge‑form factors and reader compatibility remove adoption friction.

About The Curve × Blecon

The Curve is a technology consultancy that solves real problems with the right mix of software and hardware. We deliver web and mobile applications, IoT solutions, and full end‑to‑end systems—often in partnership with specialists like Blecon—so clients get a complete outcome, not just components.

Blecon provides secure Hotspot and Network infrastructure services, supporting development with off-the-shelf or custom & embedded Beacons while giving you full control over where your data lands.

Blecon integrates effortlessly with any cloud service. Whether it’s a dedicated data platform, your backend on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or any other infrastructure you choose, you remain in full control of your data, infrastructure, and business logic.

Want a solution tailored to your site or venue?

We’d love to show you how this approach can work for your environment—construction, events, logistics, or beyond.

Huge thanks to Simon and the Blecon team for hosting us on the stand.