In recent years, BLE sensors and beacons have become an increasingly popular choice in cold-chain logistics. They help businesses expand their tracking systems to tackle cargo theft, temperature failures, and fleet inefficiencies quickly and efficiently. Compact, battery-powered, and wire-free, these devices integrate with GPS trackers to enhance real-time monitoring, security, and asset visibility without complicated installs.
In this article, we’ll explore how BLE sensors and beacons work and the new possibilities they bring to cold-chain monitoring, using Teltonika’s Eye Sensor and Eye Beacon as examples.
How critical is real-time monitoring for cold-chain logistics?
Based on the latest research, real-time monitoring is absolutely critical for cold-chain logistics. The data highlights three major risks that result in billions of dollars in losses annually across the U.S., Europe, and LATAM.
Those are failures in temperature-controlled logistics, being a leading cause of product loss, cargo theft, and driver mismanagement. Here are just a few figures.
- Approximately 14% of the world's food is lost between harvest and retail due to inadequate cold-chain management.
- The biopharmaceutical sector incurs losses estimated at $35 billion annually because of failures in temperature-controlled logistics.
- Cargo theft caused $455 million in losses in the U.S. in 2024, and €8.2 billion are stolen annually in Europe, with refrigerated goods a primary target.
- A significant portion of cold-chain failures is attributed to human errors, such as incorrect temperature settings and mishandling.
As you can see, the issue is quite palpable. Beyond financial losses, poor monitoring leads to compliance violations, regulatory fines, and operational headaches.
BLE sensors and beacons—an efficient and reliable solution in cold-chain logistics
At this point, the logistics industry requires smarter, more reliable ways to track and protect temperature-sensitive shipments in real time.
Device manufacturers have responded by embracing bluetooth low energy (BLE) technology, which is quickly becoming an industry standard. Why? Because it’s cost-effective, energy-efficient, and easy to integrate with existing tracking systems—making it a practical choice for logistics and beyond.
Although BLE is used in many sectors, from warehouse management to healthcare, here, we focus on its impact on cold-chain logistics, where precision in environmental monitoring is quite essential.
So, let’s explore BLE sensors and beacons in more detail.
What are BLE sensors and beacons?
BLE sensors and beacons are small, wireless devices that make tracking and monitoring easier, smarter, and more efficient. Although often mentioned together, they serve different purposes.
How do BLE sensors work in cold-chain logistics?
BLE sensors play a vital role in cold-chain logistics. They keep a close eye on key environmental conditions, such as temperature, humidity, motion, or whether a door has been opened. Their main job is to help prevent cargo spoilage by quickly detecting and alerting teams to unexpected changes.
Here’s a simple look at how they work:
- Monitoring the environment
Each sensor includes miniature components, such as thermometers, humidity sensors, motion detectors, or magnetic field sensors. These parts continuously track the environment around them. For instance, in a refrigerated truck, a BLE sensor might be measuring the internal temperature to make sure it stays within a safe range.
- Sending out the data
Rather than storing the data, BLE sensors broadcast it in short bursts using Bluetooth Low Energy. This means they’re constantly sending out small pieces of information at regular intervals to any nearby device that’s listening—like a GPS tracker, smartphone, or hub.
- Receiving and processing the signal
Once the data is picked up by a compatible device (say, a GPS tracker with BLE support), it’s sent to a cloud platform—such as Navixy—where it’s organized and displayed. From there, users can view real-time readings, receive instant alerts if something’s off, and generate reports to stay compliant with regulations.
How do BLE beacons work?
A BLE beacon is a small, wireless device that continuously broadcasts a signal using Bluetooth Low Energy. Unlike sensors, beacons don’t monitor the environment, they announce their presence for identification and tracking. That might sound simple, but it's useful for identifying people, assets, or vehicles and improving security and traceability in logistics operations.
Here’s how it works, step by step:
- Constant broadcasting
A BLE beacon sends out a unique signal—kind of like a digital ID—at regular intervals. This signal can be picked up by nearby devices, such as GPS trackers, smartphones, or gateways, as long as they support BLE.
- Getting picked up by a receiver
When a receiver detects the beacon’s signal, it reads the ID and checks it against a list of known devices. For example, in fleet management, a GPS tracker in the vehicle might recognize the beacon assigned to a specific driver.
- Triggering an action or event
Once the beacon is recognized, it can trigger a wide range of actions. If it's a driver ID beacon, the system might unlock the ignition only for authorized users. Or if it’s attached to a pallet, the platform can log when it enters or exits a loading area. Some systems also monitor signal strength to estimate proximity and alert teams if a beacon leaves its expected zone.
Why is BLE the go-to standard?
Compared to older wireless technologies, BLE offers significantly lower power consumption, ease of integration, and scalability. Logistics companies are increasingly adopting it because:
- It extends battery life, reducing maintenance and operational costs.
- It smoothly integrates with GPS tracking systems without requiring additional infrastructure.
- It scales effortlessly, allowing businesses to expand their monitoring networks with minimal effort.
With security concerns growing and regulations tightening, BLE is now the top choice for real-time logistics monitoring. Teltonika’s Eye Sensor and Eye Beacon are built to tackle the industry's toughest challenges.
At Navixy, we’ve added these devices to our ecosystem through integrations to give partners more choice and access to the latest technology.
Let’s explore what they offer and how they work with Navixy.
Teltonika Eye Sensor and Eye Beacon—smart BLE tech for cold-chain logistics
Teltonika’s Eye Sensor and Eye Beacon are reliable, and easy-to-integrate options. These compact devices are already in use across high-risk areas like construction sites and warehouses, helping businesses monitor environmental conditions, track assets, and prevent unauthorized access in real time.
In the context of cold-chain logistics, they’re especially effective. Let’s take a closer look at what each device brings to the table—and how they work with the Navixy platform.
Eye Sensor. Real-time environmental monitoring and cargo event detection
The Teltonika Eye Sensor is designed to measure and transmit physical variables such as temperature, humidity, motion, and even magnetic field changes. This makes it ideal for monitoring cold-storage environments where conditions need to be tightly controlled.
For example, a single Teltonika GPS tracker—like the FMC130, for example—can support up to four Eye Sensors at once, offering unified cabin or trailer monitoring. If temperature or humidity rises beyond acceptable limits, or if unexpected movement is detected, an alert is instantly triggered. This gives drivers and operators the opportunity to investigate and respond before any damage occurs.
The Eye Sensor can also track door openings using changes in magnetic field. If a door is opened without authorization, the sensor sends a real-time notification to the driver or dispatch center—helping prevent cargo theft or tampering.
These features are easy to configure via Teltonika’s Eye app, where you can map and manage sensor data, and through the Teltonika Configurator, where sensors are added by MAC address and calibrated to report accurate environmental metrics.
Eye Beacon. Driver identification and asset security
While the Eye Sensor focuses on environmental conditions, the Eye Beacon is all about identity and security. Acting as a Bluetooth-based identifier, the beacon can be linked to individual drivers, ensuring that only authorized personnel can operate a vehicle or access specific assets.
Here’s how it works: when a driver approaches a vehicle with their assigned Eye Beacon, the GPS tracker verifies the beacon’s signal and enables ignition only if the ID matches. This reduces the risk of vehicle misuse or unauthorized operation, and can even disable the electrical system when no beacon is detected.
The system also supports proximity tracking through RSSI signal strength, which can send alerts if a beacon leaves the detection zone—ideal for preventing lost equipment or monitoring driver presence.
Easy integration with Navixy
At Navixy, we’ve made it simple to integrate Eye Sensors and Eye Beacons into your fleet monitoring system. Once activated and connected to your Teltonika device, these sensors can be added directly within the Navixy platform.
You can create custom measurement sensors based on AVL entries, visualize data in real time, and receive alerts triggered by specific conditions or events.
This plug-and-play approach allows our partners to scale up their BLE tracking capabilities with minimal effort, ensuring better compliance, reduced losses, and improved operational efficiency.
Support for iBeacon and Eddystone protocols
Both the Eye Sensor and Eye Beacon support iBeacon (Apple) and Eddystone (Google) protocols, offering flexibility depending on your device ecosystem. Users can adjust signal strength, transmission intervals, and unique identifiers to strike the right balance between battery life and responsiveness.
Let’s take a look at how you can address your business needs using the devices in question and Navixy.
Setting up temperature deviation control with Navixy’s IoT Logic. A real-life use case.
As mentioned, sensor monitoring is vital in cold-chain logistics, but raw temperature readings often don’t reveal much on their own. Tracking temperature differentials offers more insight. A sudden shift beyond the acceptable range can signal a cooling issue and risk to product quality. By monitoring these changes, teams can catch problems early and act fast. Thus, having the temperature differential as a traceable value could be of great help.
In the Navixy platform, customers can actually create custom attributes like the one mentioned above with the help of IoT Logic. It works pretty intuitively and doesn’t take too much time and effort. You’re creating a custom flow for the sensor data to pass through that includes the data source, the processing step where this custom attribute is created, and the destination, which, in our case, is Navixy.
First, it's necessary to add the device for which we’re creating the custom attribute as a data source. For this, we’re editing the new Data Source node, the first point in our flow.
Moving on, the Initial Attributes node has to be set up, where calculations are performed using the required attributes, in this case, the AVL input provided by the Eye sensor with the temperature parameter. The previous value is taken and subtracted from the current value, thus giving the temperature difference.
As a final step, it's necessary to create an Output Endpoint node to send the value to the Navixy platform, hence generating an alert based on the expected data. If this value suddenly increases, we expect to have an emergency alert on the platform to take action.
The final flow chart on the IoT tab is shown below.
Based on the sensor temperature difference an alert has been created for full monitoring. To visualize the IoT attribute on the widget, it is necessary to create a measurement sensor on device settings, selecting Use custom parameter option and then adding the attribute's name. Once the value is created we can proceed to do the respective rule for triggering the alert.
It's important to mention that the data Output Endpoint can forward any previously enriched attribute value to any external system. This greatly helps temperature monitoring service owners, as IoT Logic provides great flexibility and ease for data forwarding.
Final thoughts
As the cold-chain logistics grows more complex, the need for smarter, more proactive monitoring solutions becomes impossible to ignore. BLE sensors and beacons are proving to be a game-changer—offering logistics providers a reliable, cost-effective way to track assets, protect cargo, and ensure compliance in real time.
Whether it's monitoring temperature fluctuations in a refrigerated trailer or preventing unauthorized access with driver ID beacons, this technology gives businesses the tools they need to reduce losses, improve efficiency, and build trust across their supply chain.
At Navixy, we're committed to helping our partners stay ahead of the curve. That’s why we actively follow market trends, listen to customer needs, and continuously expand our ecosystem to support the latest hardware—including Teltonika’s Eye Sensor and Eye Beacon.
Our platform is designed to be flexible, hardware-agnostic, and easy to integrate—so whether you're adding new sensors or scaling your operations, you can do it quickly and with confidence.
With Navixy and BLE-powered devices, you’re not just tracking data—you’re making smarter decisions, preventing costly mistakes, and unlocking the full potential of your logistics operations.
