I have had a pack of four jaalee beacon stickers delivered and I'm having a problem getting them 'woken up'.
According to the website, you have to tap the beacons two or three times. I've tried this a few times but still no cigar, I can't detect them using various bluetooth sniffers.
I'm wondering if I'm tapping them too hard, too soft.
Also found a Jalee app which asks me to press a button on the stickers, no button is visible but I pressed for a few seconds and one of the four stickers 'beeped' once... but the app failed to pair with it. I couldn't get the sticker to beep again.
This was a cheap alternative to Estimote stickers I ordered but which never arrived. So far, beacon sticker technology doesn't seem to be 'there'.
The beacon stickers I have need a few things to happen to be enabled.
1) Download the Jaalee app, I'm not sure it was available when my stickers first arrived. This is the correct app for iPhone for the kind of stickers I have.
App store link for Jaalee thinnest smart tracker... app
2) Open the app and select a kind of activity to which the beacon is to be enabled (they are trying to ape Estimote I believe). I chose the magnifying glass.
3) On the following dialog select + to add a new sticker.
4) Squeeze the beacon sticker firmly in the centre for several seconds until it beeps.
5) Hold it close enough to the phone/mobile device running the app to enable the app to pair with the beacon and enable it.
At this point the Jaalee beacon should be detectable with a standard Bluetooth sniffer app such as 'LightBlue'
Firmly tap the beacon on a table and it should beep. You may need to turn it over a tap the other side. They need a firm tap.
Once woken up it will be available to connect to and reconfigure. If left it will go back to sleep after about a minute.
Related
I am looking for a simple app (preferably for iPhone, but if not then for Android), which pops up a message when it receives a signal from a beacon.
The beacon is a Sensoro 4AA, we only purchased it for demonstration purposes.
The idea is: once we turn the smartphone's bluetooth on, the beacon is detected and the message just pops up.
Is there such an app (as simple as can be), where I can just insert the beacon's details (uuid, addtess, or whatever is needed) and maybe some text or link, in order to achieve that?
Thanks
You can use Beacon Simulator for Creating, broadcasting and Scanning Beacons as per your needs and testing.
For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.alea.beaconsimulator
For iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/noteacons-beacon-simulator/id1136196655?mt=8 or https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dropbeacon-a-beacon-simulator-for-development-purposes/id866760594?mt=8
I hope this helps!!!
I purchased a RadBeacon USB from Radius Networks and iBeacon Locator on my Nexus 7 says the calibration is: -59.
My iPhone 5s sees it, the measured power is: -64, so I press OK to copy this value to the Measure Power field of the beacon settings. You must apply the settings to update the Measured Power on the beacon device.
So I press Apply and use the PIN 0000.
Apply Settings.
It says "Invalid PIN".
I use my 4 digit PIN that I use for everything and it says "Connection timed out".
Now in the instructions it says "If you are unable to discover you beacon using the RadBeacon Config App, remove the plastic cover and firmly press the configuration button above and to the right of the battery holder. This will restart the 30 minute configuration window and your beacon should show up in subsequent scans.
Define firmly.
I didn't think it had a battery. What is a battery holder?
Does this button give any kind of tactile feedback when pressed so that I can know that I'm pressing it?
There's a square opening on the top-right of both sides after removing the metal cover. Is one of them the button?
Is there a product that doesn't have this 30 minute restriction so that I can get it to work the first time as a proof-of-concept, and not have to worry about it being bricked after 30 minutes?
Sorry you are having trouble, Philip.
You are correct that your RadBeacon USB does not have a battery. We also sell a RadBeacon tag, which does have a battery and it sounds like you are reading the instructions for that model. So please ignore those instructions.
To restart the config time window on your RadBeacon USB, simply unplug it and plug it back in. Then try using the iPhone RadBeacon app to configure it using the default pin of 0000. If it does not accept that pin, and you did not change the pin to something else you remember, contact us at support#radiusnetworks.com and we will arrange a replacement.
Understand that the configuration time window is simply a security feature to keep other folks from trying to reconfigure your beacon. You can always restart the time window by cycling power. So you don't need to worry about bricking your device -- just be careful not to change the pin without writing down the new number.
I've seen claims on the net that the newly released iOS 7.1's iBeacon support.
Specifically:
The system is supposed to still notify your app about
didEnterRegion/didExitRegion events, even if the user explicitly
kills your app.
didEnterRegion/didExitRegion notifications are
supposed to be faster from the background and/or with the device
locked.
I have not been able to confirm either of these claims with my own testing. In fact, I seem to be less likely to get didEnterRegion/didExitRegion notifications from a locked device. (more accurately I seem to get didEnterRegion notices, but not didExitRegion notices). That could be because Apple made me remove my BLE background mode entries in my info.plist - I'm not completely sure. I'm still trying to sort this out.
I had trouble setting up my tests at first, but I have witnessed background region entry callbacks after killing an app in iOS 7.1 on both iPhone 4s and iPhone 5s models. See comments below for testing details and instructions to reproduce.
I have also done tests on background detection times on an iPhone 4S, and I still see delays of 15 minutes on iOS 7.1. My full test results and methodology are described here.
Finally, I have also done some tests on the fluctuations on the "accuracy" (distance in meters) measurement on the same device before and after the upgrade to iOS 7.1. I do not see an obvious difference in the noise on the estimate. The graphs below show results before and after the upgrade, with an iBeacon 0.5 meters away for 60 seconds then moved to 3 meters away for 60 seconds. In both cases, the transmitter was a properly calibrated iPhone 4S w/ iOS 7.1 and the receiver was an iPhone 5S.
iOS 7.0.6 Estimated distance
iOS 7.1 Estimated distance
As has been mentioned in several articles circulating around the internet, beacon sensing is available even when you swipe your app away from the multi-tasking view. However in my experiments, a region enter/exit event doesn't call the didDetermineState: directly (Probably because I hadn't been using the AppDelegate to initiate any beacon sensing but instead triggering monitoring based on UI events). Instead if you have registered for Background Location Updates, your AppDelegate's didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method would get called with the value for key UIApplicationLaunchOptionsLocationKey in the parameter launchOptions set.
You can do a simple check like this to test if this is indeed a location update that has bought your app into the background to perform some task.
if ([launchOptions objectForKey:UIApplicationLaunchOptionsLocationKey])
You can then either register your monitored regions again or start ranging immediately.
P.S. CLLocationManager retains your previously monitoredRegions on app restore but without starting monitoring again using the same UUID and identity, you would not get the enter/exit region event in CLLocationManagerDelegate (which had brought your back up to life)
David has done some wonderful work on this, so I'm writing this cautiously... but I'm seeing something quite different from him in my tests.
I'm using two phones: an iPhone 4S running iOS 7.1 (11D167) and an iPhone 5S running iOS 7.0.6 (11B651). My iBeacons are manufactured and sold by Bluecats (www.bluecats.com), although I'm not yet using their SDK (ie. I'm just using CoreLocation) and I don't think the manufacturer makes much difference.
I'm getting response times of around 1-2 seconds on both devices when the app is running in the foreground and also when running in the background. The only difference is when I remove the app from the app switcher: iOS 7.0.6 never responds (or perhaps will do in 15 minutes), but iOS 7.1 responds in roughly the same time. When I say "respond", I mean that the CLLocationManager's locationManager:didDetermineState:forRegion: delegate is called by iOS.
I'm testing by actually wandering around my office with phones in hand, so I'm physically moving in and out of range. Strangely (?), in my early testing, where I was sitting at my desk and simulating moving in and out of range by removing and reinserting batteries, I was seeing much slower response times. Perhaps this is part of the difference?
In my testing I have seen the presence of a beacon go un-noticed by an app for up to 15 minutes, but I found something that's interesting. I'm using RedBearLabs mini BTLE sensors as ibeacons and their app to program the beacons, http://redbearlab.com/ibeacon/ (http://redbearlab.com/s/MiniBeacon_v1.zip), seems to have an something in it that immediately starts a scan / update of beacons. If I start a beacon up, and in my app it goes unnoticed, by starting then quitting the MiniBeacon app my app immediately notifies me that there are new beacons. This is the same result when entering or exiting. Their app uses CBCentralManager, which my app doesn't, so maybe a mixture between CBCentralManager and CLBeaconRegion is the way to go? I imagine CLBeaconRegion starts / restarts the bluetooth radio, so maybe that is the reason for this. Just taking a stab at it in hopes that someone with a more complete understanding can help resolve this.
Thanks
My testing also reproduces 15 mins to start scanning when my app is in background mode on iOS7.1.1. Just a bit curious, I have seen quite many youtube videos from different companies showing the app has been waken from background mode as soon as they approach their beacons. Is it sales trick?
I did everything verbatim on this sample (How do I discover a Chromecast device using Android?).
The chromecast icon turns to white on indicating there are devices available.
When I pressed it, the application unfortunately stops.
What can be going wrong? The only step so far I want to achieve is list all available devices.
Cheers!
Is it possible to track the accelerometer value while under the lock screen?
I managed to write a simple application which counts from 1 up to 100 using a timer which fires an event on which I increment a counter.
But when I use register a handler for the ReadingChanged event of the accelerometer it will not be fired anymore once the screen has been locked. Even if I unlock the screen again I will have to readd my handler.
the msdn documentation tells on the one page:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/ff941090(v=vs.105).aspx
"Valid reasons to disable idle detection in Windows Phone OS 7.1 applications include ones where core functionality continues while the phone is locked (for instance, an exercise tracking app)"
but the sensor api also tells:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/hh202968(v=vs.105).aspx
"The Sensor APIs cannot be used while the application is running under the lock screen. For more information, see Idle Detection for Windows Phone. The Sensor APIs also cannot be used in background agents. For more information, see Background Agents Overview for Windows Phone"
I hope they will change the api soon, because of that it is not possible to write any good sleep tracking / sport tracking applications ... :(
I was helping a guy with this a couple of days ago. He had an app that tracks GPS and accelerometer data under lock screen.
Turned out the app accelerometer data stopped tracking when under manual or auto lock screen.
There may be an issue here to be looked into.
Under lock screen it is a good idea to minimise power usage... disable all uncessary code, like ui updates. My understanding of one the motivations for idle detection and running under lockscreen being opened up during CTP was in response to a lot of feedback from developers of map/tracking apps that basically need this for their app to be of any use.
I'm not sure of the usage case where you'd want to use the accelerometer under the lock screen.
Apps typically run under the lock screen when you need them to do something when you're not interacting with the device. e.g. playing music or downloading a large file.
If you wanted accelerometer data I'd assume that the device is being held and, therefore, presumably, looked at. Given this, why would you therefore want to run under the lock screen?
That being said, if you had a good reason to do so, you should still be aware that:
when your application runs under a locked screen, it ... must minimize
power usage
(from the Marketplace Certification Requirements.)
In my understanding, reading values from sensors is not minimizing power usage.