What it means
A beacon is a Bluetooth device whose only job is to announce itself. Tags, shop sensors and asset markers are all beacons, they transmit and never listen.
Beacons are the easiest category to detect because broadcasting is all they do. There is no connection to establish and no pairing state to be in.
Retail and venue beacons are common in public scans and entirely benign. They are fixed to a wall or a shelf and cannot follow you anywhere.
The distinction between a fixed beacon and a portable tracker is location, not technology. A device in one place is infrastructure; a device in several of your places is worth a look.
Related terms
The other pieces of Bluetooth vocabulary that change how you search.
- RSSI: Received Signal Strength Indicator
- BLE: Bluetooth Low Energy
- Advertising interval: How often a device broadcasts
- UWB: Ultra-wideband
- Find My network: Apple’s crowd-sourced finding
- Bluetooth scanner for iPhone, Scan tab
- An unknown Bluetooth device is showing up. What is it?, Identify
- Full glossary, the complete list
Common questions
Are beacons in shops tracking me?
A beacon broadcasts to anything in range and cannot record or follow you. Any tracking comes from an app on your own phone choosing to listen and report, not from the beacon itself.
In the app: The scan shows this value live for every device around you. Read about Bluetooth Scanner.