Demystifying iBeacons@fbrunel

What is iBeacon?

iBeacon is an indoor positioning system

“a new class of low-powered, low-cost transmitters that

can notify nearby iOS 7 devices of their presence.”

What it is good for?

A whole new level of location awareness for

apps

An app will sense the presence of a beacon

and can react on it

trail markers in a park, exhibits in a museum, or

product displays in stores

How does it work?

A thin layer on top of CoreBluetooth exposed

via CoreLocation

Bluetooth LE has two core concepts

Devices can act as peripherals or centrals

Peripherals advertise services and expose

characteristics

Think of characteristics as object properties

Centrals scans for services; connects and

read/write characteristics

A beacon is a peripheral that advertise information

but it’s not a BLE service

Beacon CentralAd Ad Ad

Proximity UUID Major Minor Tx Power

Advertisement Packet

With that, an app can do 4 things

1. Scan for beacons identified with the same

proximity UUID

2. Detect if the device is in the region of one or more

beacons (~70m)

3. Determine the close proximity of a beacon

(ranging)

4. Use the minor/major integers to

differentiate beacons

Apple has built iBeacon in the CoreLocation API

Advertising a Beacon

NSUUID *proximityUUID = [[NSUUID alloc] initWithUUIDString:@"39ED98FF-2900-441A-802F-9C398FC199D2"]; CLBeaconRegion *beaconRegion = [[CLBeaconRegion alloc] initWithProximityUUID:proximityUUID identifier:@"com.company.region"]; !NSDictionary *beaconPeripheralData = [beaconRegion peripheralDataWithMeasuredPower:@(-50)]; !CBPeripheralManager *peripheralManager = [[CBPeripheralManager alloc] initWithDelegate:self queue:nil options:nil]; [peripheralManager startAdvertising:beaconPeripheralData];

Monitoring Beacon Regions

NSUUID *proximityUUID = [[NSUUID alloc] initWithUUIDString:@"39ED98FF-2900-441A-802F-9C398FC199D2"]; CLBeaconRegion *beaconRegion = [[CLBeaconRegion alloc] initWithProximityUUID:proximityUUID identifier:@"com.company.region"]; !self.locationManager = [[CLLocationManager alloc] init]; self.locationManager.delegate = self; [self.locationManager startMonitoringForRegion:beaconRegion];

- (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didEnterRegion:(CLRegion *)region { [self.locationManager startRangingBeaconsInRegion:region]; } !- (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didExitRegion:(CLRegion *)region { [self.locationManager stopRangingBeaconsInRegion:region]; } !- (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didRangeBeacons:(NSArray *)beacons inRegion:(CLBeaconRegion *)region { if ([beacons count] > 0) { CLBeacon *nearestExhibit = [beacons firstObject]; ! if (CLProximityNear == nearestExhibit.proximity) { [self presentExhibitInfo:nearestExhibit.major.integerValue]; } else { [self dismissExhibitInfo]; } } }

“One way to promote consistent ranging results

in your app is to use beacon ranging only while

your app is in the foreground.”

“if your app is in the foreground, it’s likely that the device is in the user’s hand.” — Apple BS Group.

Mythbusting

iBeacon

A. Beacons can be precisely located.

Wrong.

Location is really approximate due the signal strength and environment

factors

B. Beacons can push information.

Nope.

The app receives only a minor/major number.

It had to fetch information from the network or a local

database

iOS devices can’t be a beacon and a bluetooth service at the same time.

C. Beacon can be detected in background.

Meh.

Region monitoring changes happens between

4 and 15 minutes

Ranging doesn’t work in background. You have to

open your app.

D. A beacon can record who’s around.

What? No.

Beacons are just advertising, they are not aware of who’s listening

Ranging doesn’t work in background. You have to

open your app.

E. Beacon can do payments.

LOL. Stop it!

iBeacon is not enough, it’s just location

F. iBeacon works on other platforms.

Yes.

Support for Android exist via 3rd parties. iBeacon

profile has been documented

Not all is lost! It will improve but it’s still

radio technology.

Thanks.@fbrunel