Adding Manufacturer data to Proximity beacon

[Ank]

Hi, In the ble_app_proximity project in SDK 0.9.2, I was trying to add manufacturer data to the beacon. Here are some of the code snippets which I changed in main.c

#define APP_BEACON_INFO_LENGTH          0x17                              /**< Total length of information advertised by the Beacon. */
#define APP_ADV_DATA_LENGTH             0x15                              /**< Length of manufacturer specific data in the advertisement. */
#define APP_DEVICE_TYPE                 0x02                              /**< 0x02 refers to Beacon. */
#define APP_MEASURED_RSSI               0xC3                              /**< The Beacon's measured RSSI at 1 meter distance in dBm. */
#define APP_COMPANY_IDENTIFIER          0x004C                           
#define APP_MAJOR_VALUE                 0x01, 0x02                        /**< Major value used to identify Beacons. */ 
#define APP_MINOR_VALUE                 0x03, 0x04                        /**< Minor value used to identify Beacons. */ 
#define APP_BEACON_UUID                 0x01, 0x12, 0x23, 0x34, \
                                        0x45, 0x56, 0x67, 0x78, \
                                        0x89, 0x9a, 0xab, 0xbc, \
                                        0xcd, 0xde, 0xef, 0xf0            /**< Proprietary UUID for Beacon. */

And I created a wrapper for the ibeacon data

static uint8_t m_beacon_info[APP_BEACON_INFO_LENGTH] =                    /**< Information advertised by the Beacon. */
{
    APP_DEVICE_TYPE,     // Manufacturer specific information. Specifies the device type in this 
                         // implementation. 
    APP_ADV_DATA_LENGTH, // Manufacturer specific information. Specifies the length of the 
                         // manufacturer specific data in this implementation.
    APP_BEACON_UUID,     // 128 bit UUID value. 
    APP_MAJOR_VALUE,     // Major arbitrary value that can be used to distinguish between Beacons. 
    APP_MINOR_VALUE,     // Minor arbitrary value that can be used to distinguish between Beacons. 
    APP_MEASURED_RSSI    // Manufacturer specific information. The Beacon's measured TX power in 
                         // this implementation. 
};

In the advertising_init I added the following :

    static void ibeacon_init(uint8_t adv_flags)
{
    uint32_t      err_code;
    ble_advdata_t advdata;
    int8_t        tx_power_level = TX_POWER_LEVEL;
	//uint8_t flags = BLE_GAP_ADV_FLAGS_LE_ONLY_GENERAL_DISC_MODE;

    ble_uuid_t adv_uuids[] =
    {
        {BLE_UUID_TX_POWER_SERVICE,        BLE_UUID_TYPE_BLE},
        {BLE_UUID_IMMEDIATE_ALERT_SERVICE, BLE_UUID_TYPE_BLE},
        {BLE_UUID_LINK_LOSS_SERVICE,       BLE_UUID_TYPE_BLE}
    };

	m_advertising_mode = BLE_NO_ADV;
   ble_advdata_manuf_data_t manuf_specific_data;

	manuf_specific_data.data.p_data = (uint8_t *) m_beacon_info;
    manuf_specific_data.data.size   = APP_BEACON_INFO_LENGTH;

    // Build and set advertising data
    memset(&advdata, 0, sizeof(advdata));

    advdata.name_type               = BLE_ADVDATA_FULL_NAME;
    advdata.include_appearance      = true;
    advdata.flags                   = adv_flags;
		advdata.p_manuf_specific_data 			= &manuf_specific_data;
    advdata.p_tx_power_level        = &tx_power_level;
    advdata.uuids_complete.uuid_cnt = sizeof(adv_uuids) / sizeof(adv_uuids[0]);
    advdata.uuids_complete.p_uuids  = adv_uuids;

    err_code = ble_advdata_set(&advdata, NULL);
    APP_ERROR_CHECK(err_code);

}

But the device is not advertising at all, I mean I can not scan the device at all. Can anyone help me with the issue.

[RK]

That almost always means you generated an error, APP_ERROR_CHECK() checked the error and went to the error handler.

What's err_code at the end of that piece of code, if it's not zero, that's an error setting the advertising data.

Always, always when the code appears not to do anything, check to see if you are in your error handler.

The iBeacon data fills the advertising data completely leaving no room for anything else, so adding a name and uuids is not going to work, it won't fit. You can put a little of that in the scan response, but probably not all of it.

[Ank]

Thanks! You were correct it is due to the excess data in the advertising packet. I will try to add some of the data in the scan response.