Understanding ibeacon distancing

Question

Trying to grasp a basic concept of how distancing with ibeacon (beacon/ Bluetooth-lowenergy/BLE) can work. Is there any true documentation on how far exactly an ibeacon can

Answer 1

Distances to the source of iBeacon-formatted advertisement packets are estimated from the signal path attenuation calculated by comparing the measured received signal strength to the claimed transmit power which the transmitter is supposed to encode in the advertising data.

A path loss based scheme like this is only approximate and is subject to variation with things like antenna angles, intervening objects, and presumably a noisy RF environment. In comparison, systems really designed for distance measurement (GPS, Radar, etc) rely on precise measurements of propagation time, in same cases even examining the phase of the signal.

As Jiaru points out, 160 ft is probably beyond the intended range, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a packet will never get through, only that one shouldn't expect it to work at that distance.