- BEACON UUID GENERATOR HOW TO
- BEACON UUID GENERATOR MAC OS X
- BEACON UUID GENERATOR GENERATOR
- BEACON UUID GENERATOR BLUETOOTH
The iBeacon specification is made available to Apple developers.
BEACON UUID GENERATOR BLUETOOTH
iBeacons are based on version 4.0 of the Bluetooth specification. Setting the advertising interval is a balance between preserving battery life in beacons with long advertising intervals, but having advertisements be frequent enough to enable services to be built with iBeacons.īluetooth specifications are published by the Bluetooth SIG and are freely available to the public.
BEACON UUID GENERATOR MAC OS X
Mac OS X has a command-line utility to generate UUIDs as well:Īlthough the Bluetooth specification allows many advertising intervals, the iBeacon specification fixes the advertising interval at 100 ms. Many iBeacon configuration applications have a Generate button to generate a random UUID.
BEACON UUID GENERATOR GENERATOR
Most UUIDs are created by random number generators and will often incorporate the current time and an identifier of the generator (such as a MAC address). With 128 bits to use in the identifier, it is likely that well-designed random number generators will choose unique numbers. IEEE 802 networks, such as wireless LANs, have centralized assignment to guarantee uniqueness, but Bluetooth does not. The Bluetooth protocol assumes that UUIDs are unique across all space and time. Unlike other network protocols, such as 802.11, the UUID is not centrally managed to avoid conflicts. The UUID is used to identify iBeacons that are under common management, and in effect, the UUID sits at the top level of the hierarchy of numbers. In iBeacons, the field called a UUID is most formally referred to as the proximity UUID, to distinguish it from any other UUIDs that might be in use by a Bluetooth device. Many items in the Bluetooth specification use a UUID to identify unique elements. By far the most important, as well as most often misunderstood, is the UUID. RSSI is not transmitted in the advertising packet, because it is the power level of the signal when it reaches the receiver.Īs far as data transmitted, the payload of an iBeacon consists of these three numbers. Proximity estimation uses the received signal power of a frame at the receiver, a number called the received signal strength indication (RSSI). Returning to the example of a chain of stores, the minor number will be used for individual beacons within a single store location, perhaps to identify a product on display. The minor number is used to identify the lowest level of the hierarchy within a set of beacons. In the example of a chain of stores, the major number will typically be used for all the beacons within one particular store. The major number is used to identify major groups of beacons owned by one entity. The Bluetooth and iBeacon specifications place no structure on the use of the major and minor numbers, but there is a hierarchy in the APIs used. When iBeacons are used by, say, a chain of stores, the UUID will indicate the beacon is run by the company. Roughly speaking, the UUID transmitted by an iBeacon is a 128-bit identifier that uniquely identifies the organization the beacon belongs to. Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) (128 bits) In effect, an iBeacon advertising packet says to the world, “Hello, I’m here, and my name is…” The difference is that the “name” in an iBeacon hello consists of three numerical identifiers: Sometimes, advertising packets and events are also referred to generically as advertisements.
When a device receives an advertising packet, it results in the creation of an advertisement event at the receiver. 9 In effect, iBeacon advertising packets are thrown out into the air, and receivers can act on them (or not). iBeacon advertising packets are designed to be transmitted, but receivers do not need to respond to them. Broadcasters transmit periodic advertising packets, which contain information used by the receivers. In the jargon of the Bluetooth specification, an iBeacon is a broadcaster, a type of device that is specific to Bluetooth Low Energy. Many iBeacon devices will implement a Bluetooth receiver for monitoring and configuration functions, but the protocol itself is transmit-only. The iBeacon advertising function is transmit-only.
BEACON UUID GENERATOR HOW TO
The simplicity of the protocol hides the big challenge, which is that application developers and user experience designers need to figure out how to make applications interact more tightly with the physical world. Translating those numbers into concrete action requires building an app for mobile devices. As a result, the “protocol” that they use is simple and is basically a vehicle to deliver numerical identifiers to nearby clients. They work by periodically transmitting numerical identifiers that are mapped into actions by an application on a mobile device. Building Applications with iBeacon (2015) Chapter 2.