Let's Talk About Beacons

Re:Let's Talk About Beacons by orand on Tuesday November 04, 2014 @04:40PM (#8559205)

It seems apps have to be built to recognize a fixed set of beacon IDs. Is it possible for apps to discover and monitor a dynamic set of beacons, including beacons intended for other purposes? I'd like to be able to tap into existing beacon networks for my own app's use, but that would require being able to detect their IDs, present them to the user in some meaningful way, and then have my app watch for them.

Another scenario where this particularly matters is allowing multiple devices (phones, tablets, PCs, watches) to "pair" and keep track of their proximity from each other.

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Re:Let's Talk About Beacons by nfarina on Tuesday November 04, 2014 @04:49PM (#8559265)

Scanning for arbitrary beacon IDs is not possible on iOS by Apple's design. You could certainly do that on Android however.

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Re:Let's Talk About Beacons by orand on Tuesday November 04, 2014 @04:52PM (#8559281)

Interesting. So is it possible for Apple devices to dynamically exchange their beacon IDs amongst each other (perhaps via an app's back-end service) to enable my second scenario of devices being "paired" and monitoring proximity to each other?

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Re:Let's Talk About Beacons by BillinghamJ on Wednesday November 05, 2014 @06:47AM (#8561389)

For beacons, it does have to be a fixed list of UUIDs. The beacons also cannot detect the device which is monitoring it.

However, you could use the BTLE GATT profile. This lets you expose services & characteristics/attributes. It does allow for two way comms.

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