We develop applications using ble beacons. One of the beacons providers offering beacons with MiniBeacon firmware. I guess MiniBeacon firmware makes it possible to configure the beacon in iBeacon and Eddystone format simultaneously. Is it correct ?
I searched but could not find much information about MiniBeacon firmware. Does it have any known compatibility issues with Eddystone or iBeacon format or any known performance issues ?
Sorry for asking such a generic question. Thanks a lot.
Reg,
It does not look to me like the firmware supports Eddystone, at least not at the link referenced in the comment below the question. That firmware is 3 or 4 years old by the changelog, dating to before the release of Eddystone.
The README mentions iBeacon compatibility, and if that format is indeed supported, it would be compatible with the Android Beacon Library if the library is configured with the proper BeaconParser for iBeacon.
You may wish to check with the firmware author to see if a newer version is available supporting Eddystone.
Related
At WWDC 2019, Apple announced a new driver architecture. More and more types of drivers are supposed to run in userspace instead of in the kernel. Among the first affected drivers types – according to the announcement – are USB-to-serial drivers.
This type of drivers is supposed to be implemented using the USBSerialDriverKit, and Apple published early documentation for it. However, the pages have disappeared. There are still indexed in Google, e.g.: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usbserialdriverkit. But they all lead to a 404. Related driver kits, e.g. USBDriverKit, are still online.
Why have the documentation and most likely also the related APIs disappeared – both from the web site as well as from macOS Catalina beta 3? Will they still be part of the final macOS Catalina?
No reason was ever given why it disappeared. I guess it just wasn't ready yet.
Anyhow, it has reappeared with macOS Catalina 10.15.4 or 10.15.5.
I'm not sure how relevant it is for third parties. There is a limited number of USB-to-Serial chips available and many are already covered:
USB CDC ACM: The official USB standard for USB-to-serial communication. Driver provided by Apple out of the box. If you have any control over the hardware, this should be your preferred solution as it works on all modern operating systems without further driver installation. This is the protocol usually implemented when the USB-to-serial conversion is implemented in software (in a MCU with a USB peripheral).
FTDI chips (such as FT232x, FT2232, FT4232): Popular chip for USB-to-serial conversion. Chinese clones exist as well. Driver is provided by Apple out-of-the-box.
Silicon Labs CP210x chips: Popular chip for USB-to-serial conversion. Driver is provided by Apple out-of-the-box.
WCH CH34xx chips: Popular chip for USB-to-serial conversion from the Chinese manufacturer WCH. Driver is provided by Apple out-of-the-box.
Prolific PL230x chips: Chips for USB-to-serial conversion from a Taiwanese manufacturer. No user-space driver available yet.
So the Prolific driver is the only one missing. With the up-coming Apple Silicon based Macs, they will probably have pressure to deliver it by the end of 2020. Looking forward to it.
I want to know if I can setup altbeacon uuid, major and minor with altbeacon library for any beacon hardware that support altbeacon layout. I haven't seen this information in any place. Because of operational reasons, I need to set them up remotely, with open source software. All of them are proprietary. I am looking for an open source solution for set them up. Any help or information would be apreciate it.This question is related to altbeacon, because I couldn't find a non property solution for ibeacons.
Altbeacon is 'old' and not used so much now. In any case, it sends out a URL, not unique id(s). You should instead look into Eddystone if you really don't want to use iBeacon. All beacons just use 'standard' Bluetooth advertising so there's nothing to stop you designing your own Bluetooth advertising payload. There's an overview of advertising at BeaconZone.
The Android Beacon Library does not provide a SDK for configuring beacon identifiers. Unfortunately this is not possible because every beacon manufacturer has a different way of configuring their beacons, and the mechanisms are often proprietary and does not have a published API.
The open source AltBeacon standard is supported by a wide variety of beacon hardware manufacturers. However, there is simply no standard way of configuring the identifiers. You must follow manufacturer instructions.
As far as I understand eddybeacon (just released by Google) is effectively a new 'operating system' for Bluetooth 4.0 Low energy devices (iBeacons). I have been experimenting with iBeacons for sometime now and want to try out a few things with eddybeacon. Has anyone had a go with it yet? I've read a few sites and they say it can be installed to some devices... Can anyone share how to do this?
If you want to start out by playing with Eddystone, you have a couple of options:
You can use a software transmitter. Just download my free Locate App in the Google Play store which will both act as an Eddystone transmitter and decode other Eddystone-compatible beacons in the vicinity. Google also has posted an Android app that can transmit the Eddystone-UID frame here, but you have to compile it yourself.
You can get a few hardware beacons for testing with a Developer Kit from Radius Networks (my company) here.
Once you have a transmitter, you can try writing some software to work with it. Here's a tutorial I wrote on how to build a basic Eddystone-capable Android app.
One other thing that might be useful is an Eddystone detector tool. You can use the free Android Locate app to detect and decode all of the frames transmitted by Eddystone.
So:
Eddystone is a specification for Bluetooth Smart (usually just called BLE) devices to behave like beacons — it defines the Bluetooth frames and content they need to broadcast to be seen as beacons.
iBeacon is not a generic term. iBeacon is actually Apple's specification for Bluetooth beacons. Eddystone and iBeacon are both examples of beacon specifications for BLE devices.
There are a few ways to get started with Eddystone beacons.
a. A number of hardware manufacturers sell developer kits that will let you get started with Eddystone beacons right away, and there is plenty of example software out, either from those vendors, or from the google pages on GitHub — github.com/google/eddystone and github.com/google/beacon-platform.
b. Some people have had good luck with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis. You can see an Arduino example here (Note: I have no idea how well that project works, I've just seen it used a few times.)
Is it possible to use an iBeacon to get the UUIDs of all devices in its radius? I tried searching this up, but I couldn't find a definitive answer.
Technically speaking, iBeacon is a standard designed for broadcast-only, meaning that it can only advertise data (UUID, Major, and Minor). However, there's nothing stopping you from building a device that's more than just iBeacon. Actually, most of the beacons available today are more than just iBeacon hardware, with connectivity mode and adjustable settings, which goes beyond what's specified in the iBeacon documentation.
A good example of a device like that is an iPhone. You can make your iPhone act as an iBeacon (at Estimote, we call this Virtual Beacon: https://community.estimote.com/hc/en-us/articles/200908836-What-s-Virtual-Beacon-) and still have apps installed that are monitoring for other iBeacon regions.
Cheers.
I'm trying to learn something about iBeacon and I have a question:
As far as I understood Apple provides API in order to develop iBeacons app since IOS7, but for android how does it work? The only thing I found is that It works only from version 4.3 (Is it correct?) But are there any sdk or library to use?
Yes, you can use the open source Android Beacon Library, which gives Android the same basic capabilities to detect and transmit as beacons as provided by CoreLocation on iOS devices. This library is designed to be vendor neutral, and works with a wide variety of beacons. There are also a number of proprietary Android SDKs offered by beacon manufacturers, some of which harness special features that only work with those beacons.
The main thing to understand on Android is that while 4.3+ devices can all detect Bluetooth LE transmissions, there is no native beacon framework, and working with beacons typically requires quite a bit of logic beyond reading the Bluetooth LE packets they send out. As a result, Android beacon apps typically bundle a small library like mentioned above with the app to provide beacon detection and/or transmission capability.
Full disclosure: I am the lead developer for the Android Beacon Library.
You can use as well kontakt.io Android SDK which handles Beacons with IBeacon profile. In the latest release some optimizations in terms of battery consumption were made. Additionally, it supports filtering and modes (Android Lollipop and upwards) according to which scan is performed (explanation in brief here).
To start, visit http://docs.kontakt.io/android-sdk/quickstart/ and follow the instructions.
There is a sample app demonstrating SDK functionalities here. I suggest observing the project as it is the first place where new changes are being introduced.
As #davidgyoung pointed, there is no native framework for IBeacons in Android at the moment.