I am using Estimote beacons to determine if something moved. This is done by monitoring which beacons are in range (MonitoringListener) and which beacons have moved (TelemetryListener).
The problem is EstimoteTelemetry has a field UniqueId but Beacon uses UUID, Major and Minor to determine the unique beacon. EstimoteTelemetry does not broadcasat UUID, Major and Minor..
I need to know which beacon is broadcasting the telemetry packets. I can't see any fields that are the same in both. Anyone know how to do this on Android or iOS?
As you mentioned there are no data fields in the BT packets that are shared among iBeacon and Telemetry packets. These are completely independent packets and contain different set of information. It is not possible to use iBeacon identification in telemetry packet - it takes too much space so telemetry data would be extremely limited.
If you need to collect both packets and keep them together look-up table in your app/server is the only solution. Estimote does not provide this kind of functionality.
Each Estimote beacon has single non-changing identifier (16 bytes) assigned during production. Telemetry packet contains first half of it (8 bytes). You need to create table where this 8 bytes are related to exact iBeacon identification you use.
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I would like to create the indoor positioning system. I hope the system can collect all beacon signal and create map automatically. However, I know that far away beacon maybe cannot detect. Therefore, is that possible to discovery far away beacon based on other beacon? That is, beacon can transfer their signal based on other beacon?
Sorry, but no, it is not possible to use a beacon to relay signals of more distant beacons. Bluetooth beacons are extremely simple devices that just transmit a unique identifier. They are transmit only, and therefore completely unaware of other beacons around them.
My beacon tags are broadcasting ibeacon,TLM,URL and UID at a time with different different frequency.
I am not clear about these slots.
I am using beacons for tracking purpose only so don't need to consume all slots data.
What is the simplest way to configure beacon only for detection of his presence only.
Just use either the UID slot or the iBeacon slot for this purpose and turn off the other slots.
Use iBeacon if building an app for iOS and you need fast detection in the background. (iOS is optimized for iBeacon in this mode.)
Eddystone-URL is useful to transmit a website URL on the beacon itself so it can be displayed in nearby Google Chrome browsers configured to detect these beacons.
Eddystone-TLM is useful for knowing the battery level of your beacon (if battery powered) as well as its temperature if that is useful to you.
I'd like to modify the SensorTag Software from TI for the CC2650STK kit, so that it speeds up the reading and also the transmission of the sensor values.
Do I need to modify only the Sensor Software (CCS BLE Sensor stack from TI) or also the android app?
I'd principally need only one temperature, so other sub-question is: how can the other sensors be deactivated if not needed or if they conflict with the higher speed of the temperature sensor?
What do you mean by "speeding up"?
There are a number of different things you might mean.
Reduce the latency between opening the mobile app and displaying a
reading.
Refactor the mobile app to make it simpler to get new
readings.
Increase the frequency with which notifications are sent
by the device, if you use it in that way.
Change the firmware interaction with the sensors to obtain a reading.
Each of these meanings entails a different approach.
The period for each sensor is described in the User Guide that you reference and is typically between hundreds of milliseconds and one or two seconds. Do you really need readings more frequently than that? Typically each sensor will need an amount of time in order to obtain a reliable reading. This would be described in the sensor data sheet, along with options for working with the sensor.
More generally 'speed' will be a function of the bluetooth handshake, the throughput available over the physical radio link, the processing within the sensor tag and the processing within the sensors. I would expect the most variable part of this would be the physical link.
It is up to the mobile app to decide which sensors services it wishes to use.
Have you studied the Software Developer's Guide, available at the same page as the BLE Stack?
How to send information via Bluetooth LE 4.0 using CLBeacon UUID, major and minor identifiers?
According to CoreBluetooth documentation the maximal distance is 15 m, but as for iBeacons technology it's ranged up to several tens of meters.
You cannot transfer any data in an iBeacon transmission other than UUID major and minor. No other fields can be sent and received by apps in iOS.
The range of iBeacon transmissions are basically the same as regular Bluetooth LE transmissions because iBeacon transmissions ARE Bluetooth LE transmissions.
Because iBeacons are one way transmissions they may be more workable at the very end of the range of BLE, because they can still work if 80 percent of packets are lost.
While you could design your own one way BLE transmission using advertisements, an iOS app would not be able to read the encoded fields because iOS disallows access to the raw advertisement data.
We are discussing a large scale deployment scenario with iBeaons in several locations cross-country. The question was raised as to whether the IDs with which iBeacons advertise their presence is unique? Because our client wants to be really sure that the app only responds to a specific iBeacons and not to something else that's impersonating with the same ID (even if inadvertently).
If not unique, does the protocol allow iBecaons to advertise any additional authentication information?
It is absolutely possible to impersonate another iBeacon. I went to the Apple Store in Washington DC with a copy of the Android iBeacon Locate app, and used it to scan the identifiers of the iBeacons in Apple's store. I then went back to my office and configured my own iBeacon to transmit this same three-part identifier, and was able to make my iPhone get the same in store messaging from Apple. You cannot stop other people from doing this if they really want to. But the good news is that for most use cases, there isn't a real motivation for other people to do this.
That said, an inadvertent overlap of iBeacon identifiers is extremely unlikely. If you generate your own ProximityUUID using a standard UUID generator, the odds of another generated ProximityUUID being accidentally the same are infinitesimally small -- less than the odds of being hit by a meteorite.
Standard iBeacons do not have any other authentication mechanism. They are connectionless, transmit-only devices that only send out a three-part identifier (Proximity UUID, Major, Minor) and a transmitter power calibration value.
I work on the beacons at Gelo ( http://www.getgelo.com ). Payload confidentiality and anti-spoofing are very large concerns with a few of our customers.
UUIDs themselves are not guaranteed to be unique. It is entirely possible to spoof an UUID and all of their advertisement data (including major/minor). This presents a number of security risks.
There are rotational UUID schemes that some beacon manufacturers employ in whice every X minutes, seconds, or hours the UUID itself is changed. This would mean that someone wanting to intercept and/or spoof the beacon would need require either being in the same location as the original device and constantly matching the new values or figuring out the rotational scheme or algorithm.
The problem with rotational UUID approach is that it doesn't protect the payload (the advertising message or the scan response) so an attacker could mimic another beacon and change the value(s) being sent. Based on what the beacon communicates and how it's used by any listening devices (observers, centrals in BLE terms) or consuming applications this could not be a problem or it could be a very large problem.
We've spent time researching how-to mitigate the risk at all levels while taking into account power consumption. This is because most BLE beacons run on batteries and you want to extend the battery life as much as possible. We've come up with an approach that successfully mitigates the risk for an international organization with nearly 100k locations.
Solving this problem is possible and it's something that we've been working on. If this is what you're looking for give Gelo a call or email. We may be able to help you.
There is definitely no "UUID anti-spoofing" in place in iBeacon technology. In fact, many developers make the situation even worse and just use the default UUID provided by the iBeacon vendor. As a result, whenever you go - lets say - around an Estimote iBeacon, you see an app that is not valid in the current context, therefore just adding to users' confusion.
You can help preventing this issue and keep the environment cleaner by using globally unique proximity UUID generator and catalogue for your deployment.
See our OpenUUID service, that aims to do exactly that...
iBeacon ids are 20bytes (16 byte UUID, plus a 2-byte "Major" number and a 2-byte "Minor" number). The odds that someone will guess or accidentally choose all 20 bytes exactly the same AND be in range of the same beacon at the same time are extremely small. The combination of the near-unique number and relative short range of the BLE signal make an accidental collision pretty unlikely.
In addition to sensing the above mentioned parameters you can usually get info about the beacon mac address. If it´s based on any of the more common circuits such as the TI CC240x chips the MAC address is hardcoded unique to every chip. So that one is less easy to spoof.
One typical idea if you are both beacon deployer and app provider is to program some custom service/characteristic into the beacon as well so that your app can connect to it and verify it´s a known beacon. BUT if you at all allow someone to connect it means the beacon is extremely sensitive to a Denial of Service attack. Most beacons are single tasking and cannot radiate and id and handle a connection attempt at the same time. So some dark force could install "beacon timewaster modules" in the vicinity that keeping your beacons busy talking to a waster rather than providing the id radiation you want them to. Those rotating UUID schemes may be good enough in a hostile environment. For the most part I would say the beacons are likely to work pretty much undisturbed. It is very easy to develop a beacon quality monitoring app or custom BLE device that will keep listening for deployed beacons and report on the uptime. That way a deployer of a deployed farm of beacons will be alerted if a node goes out of service.