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To date, many users who require high accuracy location capture have found ways to do so with Survey123 – typically by using additional software to make the position from their external receiver output data through to their device’s internal position source. From version 3.3 onward, Survey123 can directly communicate with many external GNSS receivers, significantly improving both the connection experience and the quality of data captured. The most common type of receiver available for Survey123 users is a Bluetooth GNSS receiver, but you can also connect to USB receivers and receivers that are available over a network connection. The key requirement is that the receiver outputs NMEA sentences. In general, direct GNSS support is the same in Survey123 on all platforms (Windows, Android, iOS, Mac, Ubuntu) but for iOS we also need to liaise with each hardware manufacturer individually. So far we have worked with our friends at Bad Elf, Eos, Leica and SXBlue to ensure that Survey123 on iOS will work with their receivers. If you have other receivers that you need to use with Survey123 on iOS please let us know, but in the meantime, please get started by using your receiver with Windows or Android. Prepare for high-accuracy data collection Before choosing to use an external receiver with your survey, think about what additional metadata you need to display or collect. In some cases, it might be enough to incorporate accuracy into a constraint so that data cannot be captured unless a certain level of accuracy is met. In other cases, you may want to show the accuracy on the survey so the user can decide what to do, and in others, you might want to just capture all the data behind the scenes showing nothing to the user and keeping it for someone to analyze at a later data. You can use note, decimal or hidden questions to show or store metadata values in a survey. For more information see https://doc.arcgis.com/en/survey123/desktop/create-surveys/high-accuracy-prep.htm   Connect your receiver to your device Steps to connect: Turn on your receiver and place it near your device. Go to your devices Bluetooth settings, and wait for your receiver’s name to appear in the list. Tap the receiver to pair it with your device. Warning: During our testing, we have found the biggest contributor to success (or failure) when using an external receiver, is connection to your device. Whilst you’re testing you may be tempted to try connection on a few devices, possibly swapping receivers around. If you have having any trouble connecting within Survey123 – we strongly recommend checking the Bluetooth connection in your device settings. Most receivers will only connect to one device at a time – take a look around your office and be sure no one else is trying to connect to your receiver! Of course, in the real world these issues shouldn’t arise – typically you will have one receiver that you connect to one device - but it’s hard not to tinker with new toys in the office before going out in the field and I wouldn’t want experimentation to be your downfall!   Configure Survey123 to use the receiver Steps to configure: Open Survey123 and on the main menu choose Settings Choose Location Choose Add Provider, and wait for your connected receiver’s name to appear in the list Tap the receiver to add it Once the receiver is selected you are shown the settings for that receiver. You can give it a recognizable name, change how you are alerted when a connection is poor or is lost, and configure antenna height and preferred altitude measurements. We have found changing the name very useful, we all have our preferred alerts and once you set up your hardware on a pole, the antenna height is great to set and forget. Altitude is a tricky one – frankly - only touch this if you really know what your doing. In most cases, the external receiver will sort this out for you.   Go back to the location page and see that your receiver is now connected.       If you want to see more information about the data being received, press the satellite icon in the title bar. This icon is also visible whilst you’re in the survey. Here you get three pages: location data, skyplot and the NMEA data stream.   Use external receiver to capture location in a survey This is the easy part. Once your receiver is connected, location is captured in exactly the same way in a survey as before. Only now you might notice the satellite icon flashing in the title bar. The satellite icon changes based on it the connectivity state. This icon initially only displays a satellite, adding three beams when searching for a position. When positions are being received, the satellite periodically blinks. We have had feedback where users have captured data and their location was unexpectedly captured at location 0,0. Waiting just a brief moment longer – until the satellite icon is blinking - will ensure you get a reasonable location recorded even when you don’t have a geopoint question in your survey. Accuracy reporting Some organizations require reporting of the accuracy of location data to specific standards. You can use Survey123 to report whatever metadata (and subsequent accuracy calculations) you like. The attached sample survey demonstrates how to not only record the 95% confidence interval of a location, but also to constrain location capture to only when a minimum accuracy is achieved. The calculations in this survey are based upon conversion factors from the National Standard for Spatial Data Accuracy (pages 3-10 and 3-11).   RTK and post processing This section is intended to point you right back to the GNSS hardware supplier of your choice. In some cases, hardware suppliers will direct you to use an app on your device to process the positions before they are passed through to Survey123. In these cases, you will need to continue using the internal location provider setting in Survey123.  The GNSS hardware suppliers’ app will pass the corrected location information through to Survey123 where you would record the corrected information. In these cases, there may be limited metadata you can record in the survey. Some GNSS hardware outputs all available information through their NMEA data stream and you can extract the metadata into your survey for analysis at a later data. For post-processing, you may also need to save additional files from your receiver along with the metadata that you can record in Survey123. Please check your post processing solution of choice for what data will be required. ... View more

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a protocol that provides privacy and data integrity between two communicating applications. Esri is planning to require TLS 1.2 connections for ArcGIS Online services in February 2019. Keep an eye on this Technical Support information page for updates on this. At that time, ArcPad running on platforms that support TLS 1.2, will continue to work with no limitations or change in behavior. ArcPad running on platforms that do not support TLS 1.2, will experience the following limitations:  feature services can not be synced with ArcGIS Online ArcPad packages can not be downloaded or uploaded to ArcGIS Online (including the download of ArcPad templates)     All other features will continue to work as normal. Windows Desktop does support TLS 1.2. Windows Mobile/CE 6.5 and earlier do not support TLS 1.2. Windows CE 7.0 can be updated to support TLS 1.2, by the manufacturer. This change has the same consequences on ArcPad users as that experienced in December 2015 due to the SHA2 update. ... View more

Building native apps using AppStudio for ArcGIS allows you to integrate all sorts of cool hardware with your app. The hardest part is knowing how to communicate with the hardware, and what to do with the information that you can get from (or send to) it. The following intends to be an overview of the three B's - Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE and beacons, which may help you decide which of these you might need to learn more about, to solve your hardware communication requirements. Bluetooth In AppStudio 3.0, we introduced support for classic Bluetooth connectivity. The most common use of classic Bluetooth for many years has been by GNSS vendors to connect their receivers to devices. You can also communicate with other sensors using Bluetooth, such as laser rangefinders and environmental sensors. The GNSS Info sample in AppStudio demonstrates how you can connect to a device with Bluetooth. To learn more about this sample see this blog. Bluetooth LE In AppStudio 3.1, we added beta support for Bluetooth low energy (LE). A subset of Bluetooth, as the name suggests, Bluetooth LE uses less power and is ideal for more frequent transmission of smaller amounts of data. Code samples of these are a little harder for us to offer you, as typically the devices that transmit data via Bluetooth LE, do so with proprietary information. The most prolific Bluetooth LE devices in the community are fitness devices. To use your Garmin or Fitbit device you need to connect to a proprietary app to see the information: for example, steps, distance, and calories burned. You will be able to use AppStudio's Bluetooth LE components to detect Bluetooth LE devices, but typically you wont be able to interpret the data that is transmitted. Here is a sample that demonstrates connecting to a fitness device. You may not be able to use this exactly, but it shows how to get started. Once a known device is found: a known service, characteristic and descriptor is also detected by the sample. Services, characteristics and descriptors are how devices package information that they want to share via Bluetooth LE. For more information (including a diagram of how these are related) see the BluetoothLEDevice page in our API Reference. Note:  We are working to add more description and samples here! One of our friends, GPS-IT, have already used AppStudio's Bluetooth LE support to create an app that communicates with their very own hardware! Their platemeter device is used to measure pasture volumes and the accompanying iOS and Android apps built with AppStudio, receive the measurement values from the hardware via Bluetooth LE. Beacons In coming releases of AppStudio we will be adding specific support for beacons. You can consider beacons as a subset of Bluetooth LE devices. They use the same LE protocol, but make identifier information more readily available, suitable for create alerts and triggers when interacting with the beacons. And because this is not complex enough, when reading about beacons, you will see two terms: iBeacon and Eddystone. In short, these are the Apple (iBeacon) and Google (Eddystone) ways of communicating with beacons, but they don't limit which device you use to communicate with the beacon. One is not necessarily better than the other, they are just different. In AppStudio we've made progress with iBeacon properties first, and will share more about our beacon support in coming blogs and releases. You might be thinking: why beacons? The most common beacon use case is that of an interactive shop or gallery. Imagine entering a museum, and when you buy your ticket you are directed to launch the museum tour guide app. In the foyer area the app will show you general info about the museum. As you enter a gallery space, information about the room and the collection you are about to see, is shown (or dictated) to you. As you approach an individual object, information about that specific object is shown to you. This guided navigation can be achieved using beacons located near each object, or entrance to a space.  This is a great way for keeping propriety information on site. The user can only see or interact with the information, whilst they at your venue. Retailers also use a similar pattern to engage with a customer: as you approach an item or location in the store, targeted advertising or specials can be shared with the user. Summary Knowing whether to use Bluetooth or Bluetooth LE is very much dependent on the hardware you want to integrate with your app, and the hardware itself may restrict what type or amount of information you can receive from (or send to) it. We are keen to hear what Bluetooth hardware you have or would like to integrate with your AppStudio app, and look forward to expanding more on these concepts in more blogs and in our AppStudio help. ... View more