Hannes Verlinde @hverlind BUILDING AN iBEACON KILLER APP 

No content

The Basics 

BLUETOOTH LOW ENERGY • Bluetooth 4.0 standard • Low transfer rate • Focus on discovery and simple communication • Broadcast small advertising packets 

• Apple’s protocol for a BLE advertising packet ! • Physical devices conforming to the specification ! • iOS 7 API to send & receive advertising packets - (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didEnterRegion:(CLRegion *)region { [manager startRangingBeaconsInRegion:(CLBeaconRegion *)region]; } Major Minor TX Power Proximity UUID Prefix iBeacon™ 

iBeacon CoreBluetooth CoreLocation iOS FRAMEWORKS 

• Monitoring • Location: geofence region • iBeacon: beacon region • Ranging • Location: update locations • iBeacon: update proximity MONITORING vs. RANGING 

• Low power consumption • Works indoors • Micro-precision • Track multiple beacons with single region • Beacons can move PROXIMITY vs. LOCATION 

• Identification: UUID - Major - Minor • Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) • Proximity: Immediate - Near - Far • Accuracy: “Use this property to differentiate between beacons with the same proximity value. Do not use it to identify a precise location for the beacon.” BEACON PROPERTIES 

Enough talking, let’s see some code… https://github.com/hverlind/ibeacon-beacon https://github.com/hverlind/ibeacon-observer 

• Signal interference • Beacon cannot transmit rich data • What if no network inside store? • Easy to intercept advertised packets • Easy to impersonate a beacon • Privacy implications LIMITATIONS 

Micro-location 

• Inaccurate input data, short distances • Interpolation as simple approximation TRILATERATION vs. INTERPOLATION 

But does it really work? https://github.com/hverlind/ibeacon-interpolation 

• Calibrate TX Power in production environment • Build in redundancy by adding more beacons • Use CoreMotion for specific use cases IMPROVED POSITIONING 

Background Processing 

• Region entered: 10 seconds execution time • Start background task: up to 10 minutes • Background fetch: up to every 15 minutes • Alternative: decrease signal strength BACKGROUND PROCESSING 

Hannes Verlinde @hverlind Questions?