| 1) What Are Beacons? | 2) How Beacons Can Help? |
| 3) SmartPhones Beacons Support? | 4) Appropriate Places of Beacon Application? |
| 5) Technical Overview | 6) Minimum Device Configuration Required |
| 7) Integration Process |
What Are Beacons?
Beacons are the tiny devices that allow transmission of data in the form of Bluetooth frames. Beacons have limited information to transfer hence we call it lightweight devices. In this guide, we will take you through the concept & process of detecting beacons in Android App.
Related Articles
Beacons have a battery usually lasts from 1 to 2 years. For the range, you can expect within 1 meter very accurate & above 1 meter less accurate.
How Beacons Can Help?
If you are in search of some ideas to create apps then this article worth reading for exploring the possibilities with beacons and smartphones.
In a layman term, beacon emits the signal when a person with smartphone passes through it. With this signal you can display any data based on your business model.
For example, in a mall, you want to show new arrivals when a user passes through jeans rack. Yes!
you can achieve this with beacons only.
Which Are the SmartPhones Beacons Support?
- Apple iPhone 4S and Above all, iPad 3 and Above all.
- Android High-End Devices from 2014
- Blackberry 10 and Above
- Windows Phone 8 and Above
What are the Appropriate Places of Beacon Application?
- Indoor navigation in Universities or Malls: People love being guided wherever they go and in big campus they would prefer the smartphone guide them and bring out all point of interests.
- Roadside advertising for small business & restaurants: When we travel in some city then we definitely not aware of local famous shops or food courts this is the other future Application of beacon.
Now, lets move on beacons technical implementation. Whether or not you are a mobile developer, this article is intended for all of you who are looking for an out-of-the-box concept.
Technical Overview
Beacons broadcast tiny packets of data, containing their Beacon ID and information about signal strength, so that the phone can understand which beacon it hears and how far it is.
Basically beacons include UUIDs which helps detecting it in Android application, not only this major and minor values allows us to detect particular beacon.
Every Beacon ID is 20 bytes long and is divided into three sections as given below:
- UUID of 16 bytes
- Device Major (2 bytes)
- Device Minor (2 bytes)
Minimum Device Configuration Required
- Android Version : 5.0.1 & Above
- BLE version : 4.1 and above
Currently, we can see Nexus 5x, Nexus 6, Nexus 9 are the device having perfectly running BLE feature.
Note: We cannot test this app in any emulators as of now.
Step 1 – Editing Manifest
Like any permissions in android app we have to set permission for Bluetooth in our project manifest:
1 2 |
If you want to declare that your app is available to BLE-enabled handsets only then just include the following in the project manifest:
1 2 |
Now, we have to initialize a bluetoothAdapter Object before we start working with the BLE
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | // Initializes Bluetooth adapter. final BluetoothManager bluetoothManager; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_your_activity); bluetoothManager =(BluetoothManager) getSystemService(Context.BLUETOOTH_SERVICE); mBluetoothAdapter = bluetoothManager.getAdapter(); } |
Step 2 – Instantiate
For instantiating, allocate a bluetooth scanner object:
1 | mBluetoothLeScanner = mBluetoothAdapter.getBluetoothLeScanner(); |
Step 3 – Scan Settings
Go to onCreate method and set Scan Settings & Filters:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 | private void setScanFilter() { ScanFilter.Builder mBuilder = new ScanFilter.Builder(); ByteBuffer mManufacturerData = ByteBuffer.allocate(23); ByteBuffer mManufacturerDataMask = ByteBuffer.allocate(24); //Below to set uuid of beacon byte[] uuid = getIdAsByte(UUID.fromString(''0CF052C297CA407C84F8B62AAC4E9020''); mManufacturerData.put(0, (byte)0xBE); mManufacturerData.put(1, (byte)0xAC); for (int i=2; i mManufacturerData.put(i, uuid[i-2]); } for (int i=0; i mManufacturerDataMask.put((byte)0x01); } mBuilder.setManufacturerData(224, mManufacturerData.array(), mManufacturerDataMask.array()); mScanFilter = mBuilder.build(); } |
Now we are creating manufacturer array.
1 2 3 4 5 6 | private void setScanSettings() { ScanSettings.Builder mBuilder = new ScanSettings.Builder(); mBuilder.setReportDelay(0); mBuilder.setScanMode(ScanSettings.SCAN_MODE_LOW_POWER); mScanSettings = mBuilder.build(); } |
Now we can start the scanner.
1 2 | mBluetoothLeScanner.startScan(Arrays.asList(mScanFilter), mScanSettings, mScanCallback); |
Now we require to override to get the callback for scan callback.
Step 4: Define ScanCallBack function
In above callback, we fetch the settings along with received signal from getScanRecord() method.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | protected ScanCallback mScanCallback = new ScanCallback() { @Override public void onScanResult(int callbackType, ScanResult result) { ScanRecord mScanRecord = result.getScanRecord(); int[] manufacturerData = mScanRecord.getManufacturerSpecificData(224); int mRssi = result.getRssi(); } } |
Here we are ready to detect the distance and most of the data we require. We are using AltBeacon’s algorithm.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 | public double calculateDistance(int txPower, double rssi) { if (rssi == 0) { return -1.0; // if we cannot determine accuracy, return -1. } double ratio = rssi*1.0/txPower; if (ratio return Math.pow(ratio,10); } else { double accuracy = (0.89976)*Math.pow(ratio,7.7095) + 0.111; return accuracy; } } |
How about detecting the distance of beacon whether it’s far, near or immediate. Lets focus on below method to getDistance();
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | private String getDistance(accuracy) { if (accuracy return ''Unknown''; } else if (accuracy return ''Immediate''; } else if (accuracy return ''Near''; } else { return ''Far''; } } |
AND THAT’S IT! YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO DETECT YOUR BEACON!
Note: We can easily develop the BLE sample using the third party library.
Reference: https://altbeacon.github.io/android-beacon-library/
Conclusion
if you are interested to develop mobile app for deacons or anything in your mind related to iOS or android app development, Please share your detail with us for further conversation.
This post first appeared on Perception System Official Blog | Latest IT Indus, please read the originial post: here
