For this article the term ‘AP’ can be a WLAN serving AP (AP 41/43/21/61) and/or the BT11 (BLE only)
Mounting the AP
- The Mist APs must be mounted on the ceiling with the LED facing toward the ground. You cannot put a location AP on a wall (vertical mounted), on top of objects, inside of objects, or having the LED facing up towards the ceiling.
- You cannot point the AP up towards the ceiling because the system assumes the AP is always facing down. Doing so will result in your location being flipped and inaccurate.
- Link to Hardware installation guides
- and you can always reach out to support@mist.com for help
AP Height
- Placing APs between 8 to 15 feet (2.5 to 4.5 meters) high is highly recommended.
- Higher heights will work as well, and will require potentially more density of APs to deliver high accuracy, depending on the environment and use case.
- Keep in mind though the higher the APs are deployed the more their directionality is lost and becomes more like an omni regardless if your client can hear all the beams.
Line of Sight
- Line of sight from your device to at least 2 APs is highly recommended.
- It is best to place the AP at junction points whenever possible. This will help maximize both coverage and line of sight for corners.
- Deploying Mist APs above ceilings is not recommended but it is highly recommended to contact a Mist SE (support@mist.com) for guide for non-line of sight deployments.
- In-room accuracy will require an AP being inside said room to guarantee location accuracy.
AP Distance from other APs
- Deploy APs between 25 to 50 feet (8 to 15 meters) from neighboring APs for optimal coverage in a spread out offset fashion.
- Keeping each AP with line of site of the other neighboring APs is highly recommended.
- Keep in mind, all you are doing is blanketing an area with BLE energy. Don’t spread the APs too far apart, as the location error on the edges of the coverage range degrades quickly.
- If APs are too far from each other, then we call the non-coverage area in between the APs “no man’s land” — meaning there is no optimal coverage. Location accuracy will suffer if a device is in “no man’s land.”
AP Coverage Range
- The APs have a BLE coverage range of around 2,500 square feet (15 meters).
- Keep in mind that the further away you are from an AP, the lower the RSSIs are from the device the less your accurate your location will be. This is why having APs within line of sight of neighboring APs — and spreading them out to create an overlap of BLE coverage — helps improve accuracy; when a client moves further away from one AP, in turn, it moves closer to another.
APs must be on floor plan:
- An AP must be placed on the map for location to happen. APs that are powered up but not placed on a map will be ignored for location.
APs in rooms
- In room accuracy requires an AP must be placed in the middle of the room (or as close as practical.)