BLE beacons

[Roei]

Hi,

I want to use beacons in my application. I've noticed that there are 2 examples - beacons and eddystone. Which one should I use?

Thanks!

[Roei]

Ok,

But anyway, I couldn't understand - is it possible to send beacon packets and advertise for connection at the same time?

Thanks!

[awneil]

With older Android versions, the connectable/non-connectable status wasn't available - so I don't think that anything should rely upon it ... ?

See: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/45644/how-do-i-simply-do-a-non-connectable-advert-on-nrf52-using-sdk-15/186788#186788

[Roei]

This is what I need:

When my nrf device starts advertising, the mobile should send a connection request.

The problem is that my device doesn't advertise all the time, only in specific cases. Therefore - I don't want the mobile to search for advertising 100% of the time.

So I'm trying the beacons solution. The mobile will recognize the beacons packets when it's in range, and only after that, the mobile will search for connection advertisment.

Does it make sense?

Thanks!

[awneil]

Roei said:

Does it make sense

Not really.

"beacon packets" are just BLE Advertising packets.

[Roei]

So do we have another solution for that?

How can the mobile recognize a connection advertisment without search for that and use a lot of power?

[awneil]

A Central cannot see any advertising at all without searching for it!

But what makes you think this takes "a lot of power" ?

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-myths-bluetooth-can-safely-ignore-now/

[Roei]

Ok,

One more thing - I understood that the beacons have the ability to "wake" a mobile device, even if it's on sleep mode. Is that right?

That will give me the option to send beacons to the mobile anytime, and that will trigger the mobile to start scanning, while my nrf device starts connection advertising.

What is your opinion?

Thanks!

[awneil]

Roei said:

I understood that the beacons have the ability to "wake" a mobile device

No, they don't.

Again: the Central has to be scanning to see any advertising at all.

If the Central is not listening (ie, "scanning"), it will not hear anything!

EDIT

However, it could be that the Central has a "low power" mode where the only thing it's doing is scanning - which, as noted above, can be a (relatively) low power operation.

Then, when its scanning detects the advertising, it could wake the rest of the system into "full power" mode.