Why Apple's apps do not show-up iBeacon with nRF52840 DK?

[MunavarHussain]

Hi,

I'm working with nRF52840 DK and I want it to advertise iBeacon packets. 

I tried the beacon example on ble_peripherals from nRF5_SDK_15.3.0 SDK.

1) nRF connect and nRF Beacon Android apps were able to scan with Nordic's company identifier.

2) Next, I modified the company identifier into apple's identifier as given in https://developer.apple.com/ibeacon/ specification.

Now, nRF connect and other beacon scanner apps of android were showing the beacon with a tag iBeacon. The Manufacturer-specific data from the android apps included UUID, Major, Minor and RSSI values.

But, nRF connect app in iOS just detects the device with no Manufacturer-specific data nor the iBeacon tag. And other beacon apps of iOS do not detect any device.

3) Tried to include the 30-byte payload as specified by apple into the beacon example. That was no use, no device-detect on both android and iOS.

I came across this thread and found step 2 is enough to advertise nRF52840 as ibeacon. 

Kindly tell me is what I'm doing right? If yes, why aren't apple apps do not show my device? If problems are with the apps, what can be done to make it work?

[Aleksander Nowakowski]

Hi,

On Apple devices you have to use Core Location in order to scan for iBeacons. The standard Core Bluetooth scanning will show an empty packet. Using Core Location you have to register for specific UUID (optionally Major and Minor numbers) and you will get location events. Have a look at: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/determining_the_proximity_to_an_ibeacon_device.

nRF Connect on iOS is not using this API, it's only using Core Bluetooth, so the packet will seem to be empty. nRF Connect for Android will tell you the truth :) Make your beacon visible as iBeacon on Android, and then register for the UUID/Major/Minor to get updates for ranging.

BR, Aleksander

[MunavarHussain]

Thanks a lot. We are not making apps for iOS anytime soon. Is there any existing iOS app that takes the UUID parameter from the user and scans for that UUID packets? An app that takes a variable for uuid in CLLocationManager.

[Aleksander Nowakowski]

nRF Beacons (apps.apple.com/.../id879614768) should work, at least used to work like that. But it's not maintained any more and difficult to use, in my opinion. But you may find other apps on App store that do that, from other companies.

[MunavarHussain]

Ok. Thanks again!