Beacon Wireless Synchronization Device for Motion Capture Systems

Beacon is a wireless synchronization device that aligns your Vicon wireless devices with the rest of your motion capture system. It converts your system’s sync pulses into a proprietary RF signal that communicates directly with each wireless device, delivering precise timing alignment across your data. Built as a plug-and-play unit, it brings your Vicon wireless devices and Vicon software together into one seamless ecosystem.

Beacon works by converting your system’s sync pulses into a proprietary RF signal, which it broadcasts to your wireless devices over the 2.4 GHz band. Each device receives that signal and aligns its data timing accordingly, creating a direct RF connection that delivers hard synchronization — the most precise data alignment available in motion capture.

Beacon is designed to work within the Vicon ecosystem, synchronising Vicon wireless devices such as Pulsar active markers and Blue Trident IMU sensors. It brings both optical and inertial systems into a single synchronised pipeline, and also supports hybrid tracking setups used in location-based VR through Origin by Vicon.

Yes. Precise alignment of optical and inertial data is one of Beacon’s core purposes—it lets you combine Vicon Blue Trident inertial sensors with your Vicon optical setup and keep both data streams accurately time-aligned. This makes it well suited to hybrid capture workflows that draw on both technologies at once.

Beacon connects to your system over a wired Ethernet link using a CAT6a FTP/RJ45 cable, and it’s powered over that same cable via PoE (Power over Ethernet), so a single connection handles both data and power. This connects to your Vicon system network rather than an internet requirement, keeping setup simple with no separate power supply needed.

Beacon improves accuracy by ensuring every wireless device is precisely time-aligned with the rest of your capture system. Its hard RF synchronization removes the timing offsets that can occur between separate data streams, so optical and inertial data line up correctly, giving you cleaner, more reliable combined data to work from.

Beacon uses the 2.4 GHz ISM band for its RF synchronization signal. This is the same widely used, license-free band that supports robust, low-latency wireless communication with your Vicon devices.