I'm working on my Beacon project and I'm looking for best way to solve my problem.
I have few central device declared as Beacon (not iBeacon UUID).
My iOS app is working as peripheral mode in Background and Foreground.
I would like send specific data (chain characters) to be written in my app during background and foreground work.
I know that UUID is hiden by iOS when app is in background.
However, UUID is hiden only for devices which were not paired before.
Can i have a issue to implement list of UUID devices in my iOS list devices to be paired automatically when user downloaded the app ?
If not, Can I set one same UUID for my all central devices (but with with different minor and major values) and ask for first pairing when the app is turn as foreground for the first time with near central devices detected ?
Best regards,
Greg
My beacons are configured as central and they're scanning continually.
When they found iPhone's with my apps running as peripheral, my beacons try to write a value into my app.
I can't understand how implement my app (working as peripheral) to receive this value in background mode without pairing ?
--> Can I send value to my app without user pairing ?
If not
--> Can I send value to my app without user pairing including manually all my UUID's (central beacons) in the code of my app ?
Related
We are developing a bluetooth low energy device for a home automation application.
We are facing a major questioning for which we need help.
Here is the use case:
The device needs to have the awareness of the user IOS phone presence or absence in the house.
The BLE devices are working on peripheral role, the IOS should therefore work on central role.
The IOS App is mainly running in background mode.
For the presence detection awareness , we think it can be obvious: the phone whenever entering into the range will discover the device and initiate a connection to inform its presence to the device.
However we are struggling to find the absence detection method.
How shall we implement the absence detection awareness so the device would know when the user is not at home?
Any suggestions are welcome.
I think this can help you ,
During initial sync of your iOS device with peripheral basically when you are writing configuration settings on the BLE you can save the iphone's UUID of the user on ble but still you have to get the UUID of iPhone when user is in the range.
I'm currently trying to develop a Background Bluetooth related app, and I'm having some trouble scanning in background.
I followed the entire Apple IOS Bluetooth Background tutorial, but I cant figure out why scanning doesn't work in background (my info.plist is correctly set up to manage BLE Background tasks, both central and peripheral).
What I've tested so far :
1 - When my two devices are in range and in foreground, scanning works well.
2 - When the peripheral is in background, and the central comes active in foreground, scanning also works, peripheral is well detected.
Here comes the troubles
3 - first I launch my peripheral device, and I put the app in the background. Then on the peripheral device, I power off the bluetooth, I launch the app, I put it in background, and I power on the bluetooth.
In my code, the -(void)centralManagerDidUpdateState:(CBCentralManager *)central calls the scan [centralmgr scanForPeripheralsWithServices:[NSArray arrayWithObject:servicesUUID] options:scanOptions];, function which works perfectly in the foreground. But nothing happened, the peripheral is never detected by the central.
4 - I launch the central, bluetooth activated, and I put it in background. Then I took my peripheral device, I went out of the bluetooth range (in the specific case I went to my supermarket to buy some beers to drown my sorrow), I launch it there -also bluetooth activated- I put it in background and I came back in the proximity of my peripheral. Once again nothing happened, the centrals did not detect the peripheral.
Furthermore, after the cases 3 and 4, if I just put the central on the foreground (the peripheral stays in background), detection restart, without doing anything else. As if the scan was successfully triggered in the case 4, but waiting the app to come active to actually start detecting other devices.
Does somebody have an idea on how to proceed/overcome the problem?
Thank you!
Ps: I appologize for my English, I'm a bit rusty
Hi for details you can see this answer
but the short answer is one of your Apps must be in Foreground to connect to each other
Either your central device or the peripheral
Reason: for central you an only scan with providing the service UUIDs of the peripheral
and in background a peripheral cannot adverise its UUIDs
so even they are there they just don't know of each others presence
Moreover some more notable things about background scanning are
you should be aware that advertising while your app is in the background operates differently than when your app is in the foreground. In particular, when your app is advertising while in the background:
The CBAdvertisementDataLocalNameKey advertisement key is ignored, and the local name of peripheral is not advertised.
All service UUIDs contained in the value of the CBAdvertisementDataServiceUUIDsKey advertisement key are placed in a special “overflow” area; they can be discovered only by an iOS device that is explicitly scanning for them.
If all apps that are advertising are in the background, the frequency at which your peripheral device sends advertising packets may decrease.
See Apple Docs
I have read the docs about the BLE for iOS, and i could see that every device has its UUID instead of mac adress for the BLE.
My question ,in which there is no answer to on the docs, is- when you turn on the bluetooth on the device ( without opening any app) , so the device's bluetooth is on , what does it advertise then, and could I discover that device or get its UUID, while his bluetooth is on,but without any app that is open.
I am pretty sure that when the BLE is on, you can discover that device, or awake him, but I wonder what data can I get from him while its on without an app .
(same for Android.. )
iOS does not advertise any Bluetooth Low Energy services that are visible to another iOS device without an app running. Once an app advertises a service you will see additional services available - device information, time service, battery level.
If you are using different Bluetooth hardware to scan then you may see some advertisements without an app but the reported UUID of an iOS device changes every 15 minutes for privacy reasons - See this answer - Corebluetooth, How to get a unique UUID?
I am trying to make an Application using iBeacon in which One device will work as beacon Broadcaster and another one as Receiver.I gone through the similar thing in Run iPhone as an iBeacon in the background but the solution that present there is not for API of iBeacon so i am asking this thing again.
I succeed in being notified on Detector Device(receiver) even the App is in Background or in Quit mode. but Whenever Broadcaster Device's App goes in Background it stops Broadcasting packets and become no more as beacon. When it comes back in Foreground it again works fine. So the issue is Broadcaster has to be always in Foreground to Act as Advertiser or Broadcaster.
Is there anyway to advertise/Broadcast packets of iBeacon's even when App is in background mode.
I have enabled capabilities "Location Update" and "Acts as a Bluetooth LE accessory" from xCode.
Unfortunately, it is simply not possible to advertise as an iBeacon in the background on iOS. For an explanation as to why, see here: Can we start iBeacon transmitter in background?
Apple doesn't authorize it, it would be a mean to track an user which is quite against Apple current policy to preserve users' privacy.
The capabilities "Acts as a Bluetooth LE accessory" is to enable your application to continue being used as a bluetooth device (with a connection) when the app go in background mode. Advertising isn't a connected usage of bluetooth and isn't concerned by this capabilities.
I have an app that runs 2 modes:
Mode 1: Advertises the App UUID
Mode 2: Monitors and ranges for the App UUID
When the 2 devices are in proximity a notification is triggered. When in the foreground I'm able use the Major / Minor values to send the unique device ID (guessing Bluetooth MAC address) to device in mode 2 and call a webservice to identify 'who' the device belongs to.
This method does not seem to be possible in the background? I've read that the Bluetooth packet that's advertised by iOS device either strips the Bluetooth MAC address and major / minor values out when advertising, or the device running the app in the background receiving the notification chooses not to receive it?
My question is really this:
Is it possible to detect which device is advertising the Apps UUID even if the device monitoring has the app in the background using CoreBluetooth iBeacon or CoreLocation services?
Yes, you can do this using CoreLocation iBeacon APIs in mode 2 and CoreBluetooth APIs to advertise an iBeacon with device-specific major and minor identifiers in mode 1.
To clarify, you CANNOT use the Bluetooth Mac address as iOS spoofs this on the receiver side (both in the background and foreground), assigning a unique one per session that is not always consistent for the same transmitting device.
Using an iBeacon transmission you must know the iBeacon ProximityUUID in advance on the receiver, so the 16-bit major and 16-bit minor fields are all that you can use to uniquely identify a device. That gives you over a billion combinations so it should be sufficient.
You can monitor for the single iBeacon UUID in the background, then iOS will wake up your app for 5 secs, allowing you to use the iBeacon ranging APIs to read the major and minor identifiers. All of this works in the background for mode 2, except transmitting as an iBeacon which requires the foreground for mode 1.