Building an iBeacon Killer app

iBeacon talk presented at mdevcon on March 8th 2014 in Amsterdam.

Transcript

1. Hannes Verlinde @hverlind BUILDING AN iBEACON KILLER APP
3. The Basics
4. BLUETOOTH LOW ENERGY • Bluetooth 4.0 standard • Low transfer rate • Focus on discovery and simple communication • Broadcast small advertising packets
5. • 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™
6. iBeacon CoreBluetooth CoreLocation iOS FRAMEWORKS
7. • Monitoring • Location: geofence region • iBeacon: beacon region • Ranging • Location: update locations • iBeacon: update proximity MONITORING vs. RANGING
8. • Low power consumption • Works indoors • Micro-precision • Track multiple beacons with single region • Beacons can move PROXIMITY vs. LOCATION
9. • 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
10. Enough talking, let’s see some code… https://github.com/hverlind/ibeacon-beacon https://github.com/hverlind/ibeacon-observer
11. • 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
12. Micro-location
13. • Inaccurate input data, short distances • Interpolation as simple approximation TRILATERATION vs. INTERPOLATION
14. But does it really work? https://github.com/hverlind/ibeacon-interpolation
15. • Calibrate TX Power in production environment • Build in redundancy by adding more beacons • Use CoreMotion for specific use cases IMPROVED POSITIONING
16. Background Processing
17. • 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
18. Hannes Verlinde @hverlind Questions?