Using iBeacons in iOS with Swift

GPS is great for outdoor location sensing. Unfortunately, it falls short indoors. iBeacons pick up where GPS leaves off by providing a means for indoor location sensing using Bluetooth low energy (BLE). In this talk we’ll talk about what iBeacons are, how they work, and when you can use them. We’ll also introduce the programming model to interact with them in iOS using Swift and the Apple CoreLocation framework. Live demo included!

Transcript

1. Using iBeacons in iOS with Swift M AT T N E D R I C H
2. ABOUT ME AT O M I C O B J E C T M AT T N E D R I C H @ M AT T N E D R I C H M AT T. N E D R I C H @ AT O M I C O B J E C T. C O M
3. What is an iBeacon?
4. Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) device Broadcasts a fixed one-way message at a regular time interval Devices can listen for messages and react appropriately WHAT IS AN IBEACON?
5. One-way is important! No “connection” is made Repeated BTLE advertising packet WHAT IS AN IBEACON?
6. WHAT IS AN IBEACON? B
7. WHAT IS AN IBEACON? B !
8. What can you do with them?
9. GPS works well outside, but doesn’t work well indoors iBeacons can pick up this slack Applications Context aware content delivery (advertising) Passive Tracking INDOOR LOCATION SENSING
10. Museum Place an iBeacon at each exhibit Store (e.g., Walmart) Detect when a customer is in a certain aisle, and deliver an advertisement to them CONTEXT AWARE CONTENT DELIVERY
11. Detect when users walk past houses for sale, or apartments for rent Detect when users walk past your business CONTEXT AWARE CONTENT DELIVERY
12. Stores can place beacons throughout and monitor customers as they move Traffic analysis, detect common routes Help detect over and underutilized areas PASSIVE TRACKING
13. http://blog.mowowstudios.com/2015/02/100-use-cases- examples-ibeacon-technology/ MANY MORE APPLICATIONS
14. CONFIDENTIAL IDENTIFIED BY THREE NUMBERS U U I D M A J O R N U M B E R 2 1 M I N O R N U M B E R 3
15. UUID, MAJOR, MINOR Broadcast in every packet Configurable Allow for nice addressing schemes
16. Who makes iBeacons?
17. Apple Makes iBeacons? T R U E O R FA L S E
18. False
19. Apple defined protocol Many beacon manufacturers Usually offer a companion app to connect to and configure their iBeacons BEACON MANUFACTURERS
20. Each manufacturers beacons vary Battery life Battery replaceability Range Configurability Other protocols in addition to iBeacon BEACON MANUFACTURERS
21. Some manufacturers offer an SDK Can simplify high level operations However, you do not need to use this BEACON MANUFACTURERS
22. BEACON MANUFACTURERS E S T I M O T E R A D I U S N E T W O R K S B L U E S E N S E B L U E C AT S
23. BEACON MANUFACTURERS E S T I M O T E R A D I U S N E T W O R K S
24. Apps allow for configuration UUID Major Number Minor Number BEACON CONFIGURATION
25. Advertising Interval and broadcast strength are also configurable (usually) BEACON CONFIGURATION
26. iOS Programming Model
27. CoreLocation framework Hides the BTLE nature of beacons Some abstraction overlaps other location mechanisms (e.g., geo fencing) IOS PROGRAMMING MODEL
28. Step 0 - Permission
29. NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription Monitor or range when the user has the app open NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription Monitoring when the app is in the background PERMISSION - INFO.PLIST
30. CLLocationManager requestWhenInUserAuthorization() requestAlwaysAuthorization() Must call one before you start monitoring or ranging PERMISSION - CODE
31. CONFIDENTIAL TWO USAGE MODELS M O N I T O R I N G R A N G I N G 2 1
32. Monitoring
33. Passive Receive ENTER and EXIT events Works in the background Can only monitor 20 iBeacons at a time MONITORING
34. MONITORING B ! E N T E R ! E X I T
36. CLRegion
39. Ranging
40. Active Continuous callbacks with beacon info (e.g., proximity) No beacon limit Foreground only (kind of) RANGING
41. RANGING B ! R A N G E ( FA R ) R A N G E ( N E A R ) R A N G E ( I M M E D I AT E )
43. CLBeacon
46. CLPROXIMITY
47. CLPROXIMITY
49. CLLOCATIONACCURACY
50. RSSI
51. Is the Distance Accurate?
52. HTTP://STACKOVERFLOW.COM/QUESTIONS/20416218/UNDERSTANDING-IBEACON-DISTANCING
53. HTTPS://SHINESOLUTIONS.COM/2014/02/17/THE-BEACON-EXPERIMENTS-LOW-ENERGY-BLUETOOTH-DEVICES-IN-ACTION/
54. HTTPS://SHINESOLUTIONS.COM/2014/02/17/THE-BEACON-EXPERIMENTS-LOW-ENERGY-BLUETOOTH-DEVICES-IN-ACTION/ DISTANCE EXPERIMENT BLOG POST Looked at two beacon manufacturers Estimate Kontakt Found that accuracy varies between manufacturers and also beacons within a given manufacturer, but distance measures can be decent under certain situations
55. How can I get some iBeacons?
56. HOW MUCH DO THEY COST? E S T I M O T E R A D I U S N E T W O R K S B L U E C AT S 3 F O R $ 5 9 $ 1 4 3 F O R $ 8 7
58. Other Tips
59. Monitoring is allowed Ranging is not However, you can use monitoring to wake your app up, and then range periodically BACKGROUND
60. BEACON IDENTIFICATION If you can’t turn off your beacons, it is good to have some way of disabling them Faraday cage - exist on Amazon
62. MONITORING MORE THAN 20 BEACONS HTTPS://SPIN.ATOMICOBJECT.COM/2016/04/18/MONITORING-OVER-20-IBEACON-REGIONS/