Beacon resources and tools for OSX, iOS and Android.

Software Versions

$ date -u "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S +0000"
2016-05-25 01:53:29 +0000
$ uname -vm
Darwin Kernel Version 15.5.0: Tue Apr 19 18:36:36 PDT 2016; root:xnu-3248.50.21~8/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
$ ex -s +'%s/<[^>].\{-}>//ge' +'%s/\s\+//e' +'%norm J' +'g/^$/d' +%p +q! /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist | grep -E 'ProductName|ProductVersion' | sed 's/^[^ ]* //g' | sed 'N; s/\n/ /g'
Mac OS X 10.11.5

Instructions

Apple’s iBeacon for Developers page gives a good technical overview of beacons. The Getting Started with iBeacon PDF is especially useful.

An Apple computer with a Bluetooth 4.0 Low Engergy (BLE) radio running OSX Yosemite or later can send and receive iBeacons.

MactsAsBeacon allows OSX to transmit beacons.

git clone git@github.com:timd/MactsAsBeacon.git
cd MactsAsBeacon/
cp -R MactsAsBeacon.app /Applications/
open -a MactsAsBeacon

Beacon Scanner can be used to detect beacons on OSX.

wget https://github.com/mlwelles/BeaconScanner/releases/download/1.11/BeaconScanner-1.11.zip
unzip BeaconScanner-1.11.zip
cp -R "Beacon Scanner.app" /Applications/
open -a "Beacon Scanner"

The Locate Beacon app for iOS and Android can be used to locate beacons. It can also be used to transmit beacon information. Note that only Android 4.3+ devices with BluetoothLE can detect iBeacons. Android 5.0+ and BluetoothLE is required to transmit iBeacons.

iBeacon support is part of the Core Location Framework on iOS and OSX. AltBeacon can be used to add beacon support to Android apps. A Unity 3D iBeacon Asset, and a Cordova iBeacon Plugin exist.

A Raspberry Pi (or other Linux box) with a Bluetooth LE dongle can act as a beacon.

References

Primary Sources, Non-Peer-Reviewed

General Sources

Tertiary Sources