Boosting Bluetooth location relay beacons: Minew’s MBM04 and the nRF54L15
MBM04
Shenzhen-based Minew is a Chinese IoT hardware manufacturer specialising in wireless connectivity products, offering complete solutions from conception to production. Founded in 2007, the firm offers a comprehensive product portfolio of Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) beacons, IoT sensors, gateways, asset tags, LoRaWAN devices and wireless modules.
These products support organisations that manage large, complex environments, such as healthcare facilities, warehouses, smart factories, retail spaces and commercial campuses. Primarily, these are environments where poor indoor coverage, low positioning accuracy, high infrastructure costs and heavy maintenance demands are common.
“Minew’s products are designed to address these challenges by enabling wireless deployment, long battery life and flexible integration into different platforms and systems,” says Fick Liu, a strategic development partner at Minew. “We focus on delivering reliable, low-power and scalable hardware that serves as the foundation for real-world digitalisation projects across multiple industries.”
Asset tracking through Bluetooth LE beacons
Organisations managing large, complex spaces depend on Bluetooth LE beacons, beacon hardware and other location-based services to track assets, automate workflows and monitor real-time activity. This makes Bluetooth location relay beacons essential as environments become increasingly connected. These devices both broadcast their own identity and relay data from nearby tags to expand coverage and improve accuracy.
Meet the MBM04
As a leader in this field, Minew developed its next-generation Bluetooth location relay beacon, the MBM04, using Nordic’s nRF54L15, a next-generation ultra-low-power wireless System-on-Chip (SoC). Through this pairing, Minew enhanced the MBM04’s performance, accuracy and long-term reliability for large-scale indoor positioning projects.
The MBM04 is designed to adapt to modern indoor positioning needs by allowing flexible role configurations. Rather than handling every role at once, the MBM04 supports configurable working modes (i.e. anchor, relay or beacon), allowing users to optimise performance, power consumption and deployment flexibility:
- As a fixed anchor, the MBM04 provides a stable reference for indoor positioning systems. In this mode, it can either broadcast its identity for positioning or scan and relay nearby Bluetooth tag data to the gateway, depending on configuration.
- In relay mode, the MBM04 scans for nearby Bluetooth tags (typically 3 to 100 devices) and forwards their data to the network, thereby extending coverage and improving data-collection efficiency.
- In beacon mode, the MBM04 broadcasts its own identity for detection and positioning purposes. This mode focuses on visibility rather than data forwarding.
This multi role architecture enables coverage expansion without deploying excessive infrastructure.
The MBM04 uses multi anchor positioning algorithms to achieve 3-5 meters of indoor accuracy, with the potential to reach 1-3 meters in optimised deployments – well within typical expectations for Bluetooth LE indoor positioning.
Built for scalability, the MBM04 supports real-time tracking, indoor navigation and automated proximity-based actions. It performs reliably even in dense RF environments, and its rugged construction and low power consumption ensure multiyear, maintenance-free operation.
Keeping up with the MBM04
During development, Minew needed a platform that could:
- Process high volumes of data from nearby devices
- Preserve power to support years of battery life
- Maintain stable performance in dense environments
- Support future upgrades, including advanced location technologies
Since the MBM04 performs as an anchor, relay and beacon, it requires a component capable of handling fast, concurrent operations while remaining energy efficient.
The ability to support emerging Bluetooth LE technologies – such as Bluetooth Channel Sounding, which will enable higher-precision ranging – was another key requirement. The chosen hardware needed to provide room for future firmware enhancements without needing the device to be completely redesigned.
This made Nordic’s nRF54L15 an ideal match.
Why Nordic
Minew selected the nRF54L15 for its processing headroom, robust radio architecture and multiprotocol support, making it ideal for relay-heavy environments where many devices operate simultaneously. Essentially, the SoC offers a next-generation Bluetooth platform supporting relay-based positioning, multi-role operation, ultra-low-power performance and maintenance-free reliability.
Key advantages of the nRF54L15 include:
- Ultra-low-power multiprotocol radio with Bluetooth LE performance
- Efficient processing for handling dense beacon environments
- Adjustable transmit power up to +8 dBm, improving range and stability
- 0.7 μA deep sleep consumption supporting a 10 year battery operation
- Large memory and forward-looking feature support, including Bluetooth LE, Mesh, Thread, Matter, Zigbee and Channel Sounding
“Nordic’s components stood out for their ultra-low power performance, stable Bluetooth connectivity, and strong ecosystem support,” summarises Liu.
Moving Forward
Minew and Nordic Semiconductor have a long history of collaboration, and the MBM04 represents another step forward in their shared commitment to scalable, reliable wireless solutions.
Liu adds, “Nordic Semiconductor’s technology roadmap, product stability and technical support align well with Minew’s long-term strategy. Our collaboration continues to be very positive.”
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