All, I'm really diving deep into the location-aware area of app development. I hope I can be a resource in the future. Some things to get started: I'm getting into GeoMoby and checking in out. I've configured a UUID beacon (a Qualcomm Gimbal series 10) in the service and I'm looking at creating a test app to see the SDK in action. Qualcomm will send you a 3-pack of series 10 beacons here: https://gimbal.com/#beaconGiveawayPanel Today Qualcomm announced the gimbal iOS configuration app and their official Apple iBeacon (trademark) certification. This allows you to now assign a UUID to the beacon. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gimbal-beacon-manager/id785688563 I was informed today that the series 20 beacons are not available for purchase but they will have a storefront open in "a few weeks". Also, if you have received gimbal beacons before today they do NOT have the correct firmware to work with the Gimbal app (not really a big deal). You can still give them a UUID. Firmware updates are "coming soon". Good luck beacon hunting, Ryan

Very cool! Just signed up for a pack of beacons...I can think of some cool stuff to do with those! Mark

You know I signed up, lol! The shame of it is, I have a pack of 6 'stick and find' beacons… and that's when I found out none of my devices are compatible. So I've been scouring Craigs List and the local marketplace for something I could use, that wouldn't cost me a mint to get. So far, no good. Anyone got a 5th Gen iPod Touch they want to sell? Cheers! -- Smug

Smug, I might have a 4S for you in a few weeks. I'll message you if I do. Ryan

Please! I'll pay bottom dollar! ;) Cheers! -- Smug

Interesting tech, Niraj and I just saw iBeacons in action at a recent iOS meetup group. Amazed at what can be done.

Thanks for the share, have been tinkering with some BLE stuff as well. Put in my request as well. I saw this article on MLB the other day when I was checking out some hot stove rumors- http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/31/5363834/mlb-apple-ibeacons-to-20-teams-ballparks-in-march Can't wait to see how they utilize that. 8 days until pitchers/catchers report - GO Cubs!

Got some Gimbals too… need to actually take em out the package … maybe soon with this GeoMoby tie in.

The MLB thing is cool. Unfortunately for small developers all the baseball digital stuff is run by the big boys at MLB. But it will be a good real world usage to point to when pitching to clients (no pun intended) Here's the Miami Dolphins Gimbal system: http://www.miamidolphins.com/multimedia/videos/Qualcomm-Gimbal/bc8f936d-19b9-42a1-a6be-7de5f7572aca Ryan

there are quite a few stories out there ...mostly in retail though. http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/12/06/first-look-using-ibeacon-location-awareness-at-an-apple-store http://www.shopkick.com/

RFC - Thanks for the Gimbal info. Just ordered!

I too have the Stick-n-Finds and the Gimbal devices. Now I have to do something with them! Thanks for the info on the Gimbal app. Bummer about the firmware ... patience takes too long! :-) Lets see if we can make this work within a BT app. ------ HiBeacons is a fully functional demo app for the new iBeacons API in iOS 7. The app can be used to demonstrate beacon monitoring, advertising and ranging, by toggling on/off three switches. You can easily see any beacons in the vicinity, with all their info, under the 'Detected Beacons' section. https://github.com/nicktoumpelis/HiBeacons ------- A tutorial that explains the basics of using the iBeacon API by Christopher Mann at Captech Consulting: http://www.captechconsulting.com/blog/christopher-mann/ios-7-tutorial-series-core-location-beacons

Got notice via email that I've been approved for a free pack of Gimbal beacons! Woot! Now I really need to get a new device, lol! Cheers! -- Smug

Smug, Very nice. I would love to hear about your Gimbal code integration through BT. I've played with it a little but can't get it working. I'm also trying to use GeoMoby and just linking the UUID from the beacon into the GeoMoby system. Lots of things to work out on this new tech. Ryan

Just got my approval from Gimball as well, Thanks again for bringing this to our attention. I like this more than the RedbearLab project which they say won't be open source... I've been tinkering with BLE and my Texas Instruments Sensor tag. You can get that here for $25 https://estore.ti.com/CC2541DK-SENSOR-CC2541-SensorTag-Development-Kit-P3192.aspx I built a simple app based on their sample code that reads the Humidity Level in my house from the device and discovered that I needed a new humidistat. When I find more time I'm going to get the Arduino kit or use my Raspberry PI and try building something cool with that. I'm not using any BT code or screens for this stuff, just a simple IOS single view app template. I really don't see this stuff playing that well to the BT audience to be honest, but it is cool to see a few folks dabbling with it here :)

Beacons arrived last week and I did a little tinkering with them over the weekend. Major bummer that these series 10 can't be updated. There's no way to assign a UUID to them until they update that software :( It would also be nice to if Gimbal would publish a sample app we can pick apart. I'm not sure how much of their FYX SDK I want to learn, I was hoping to stick with the standard iOS iBeacon code. I gave up on Gimball and decided to just use decives then and build an iBeacon plugin. I made 2 plugin screens - 1 to broadcast an iBeacon and 1 to detect the iBeacon broadcast. Got all the screens/code working but you have to test this stuff on actual devices. No problem working on my phone - but when I wanted to use the iPad as the 'broadcast' beacon/device - I was surprised to discover Bluetooth doesn't seem to work on ipad second gen under ios7. LOL, I thought the Apple devices just 'worked'. I'll be keeping an eye on the Gimbal Manager app waiting for that update so I can use these Series 10 beacons!

Atrain, That's odd that you got a set of series 10 with the old firmware. I got mine back in December so I was expecting that. I'm also not happy with Gimbal's support. I've had to ping them multiple times for each request and they never processed my production request. I'm looking at Radius Networks now. They seem to have some nice devices. Especially the RadBeacon which plugs into a USB port effectively eliminating the battery life problem of other small beacons. Ryan

Definate bummer you can't program a UUID or flash those series 10 beacons yet. This article here seems to say you CAN scan them and get the UUID from them. http://beekn.net/2013/12/inside-gimbal-qualcomm-beacons-tackle-bluetooth-le-challenges/ If there's a way to do that I'd love to learn it and then post up here to let other Gimbal S10 users know how to get the UUID. https://support.gimbal.com/entries/37686708-How-can-I-find-the-UUID-for-the-series-10-beacons- I'm more annoyed that the iPad has Bluetooth issues. Having to test this stuff on real devices is a pain, but impossible when the devices don't work - but it's even harder to get an idevice out of the hands of a 6 year old Minecrafting child or Facebook junkie wife to test. RadBeacon looks interesting. Not sure about spending $29 for it until I research more. I could build a "PiBeacon" instead if I buy use a USB BT dongle and use my RasbperryPi. http://learn.adafruit.com/pibeacon-ibeacon-with-a-raspberry-pi/overview The fun of trying to be an early adopter of technology....

Gimbal update: http://view.qualcomm-email.com/?j=fe6412767765067a7517&m=fec5157470610674&ls=fdca15707060057b7d15757760&l=fe5e177474670d7b7315&s=fdfa1579746004787d14717d&jb=ffcf14&ju=fe2311767062017d701d73&utm_source=exacttarget&utm_medium=email&r=0

got that email too- Still not the update we really need tho, the ability to configure those Series 10 beacon with UUID's so they can be iBeacons! I went with a RadBeacon - once I realized that you could just plug that thing into a USB wall charger and you've got a iBeacon that will never die + the fact that their config app does work. Great support when I asked a few questions before purchasing and they shipped it to me in like 2 days. The thing works great. At this point I do have a fully functioning iBeacon plugin that is pretty much market ready. I'm just trying to work out some ranging issues. It seems this API is pretty new to iOS and there are bugs in it that make putting a "fool proof" iBeacon BT plugin challenging. I'm trying to make something simple that can be used by non-coders and works with the BT Control panel. It's pretty much RIGHT there except for some jankness with ranging I'm seeing in my field testing. This article has been a huge help- http://beekn.net/2013/11/ibeacon-tutorial-dealing-with-errors/ I can't tell if devs out there think future iOS updates will address these problems or if you need to build the workarounds into your code. I'm weary of putting it on the market and users running into those same problems and not having a fix.... If any of you guys have would like to help/test the plugin in it's current state, give me a shout.

Very nice in how Travel Radar uses Local Notifications to provide range-based alerts on the Lock Screen. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/travel-radar-luggage-tracking/id806273368?mt=8 Read more about it on his blog. I left in the referencing link to give Dave Verwer the proper love. http://travelradar.awwapps.com/?utm_campaign=iOS_Dev_Weekly_Issue_136&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly The Blog is excellent, I love his iBeacons context-based detection scenarios for the Kitchen, TV Room, Coat room. http://blog.awwapps.com/ -- Niraj

ATRAIN, I would like to test your plugin. I'll PM you. Awesome work, Ryan

Thanks Ryan - PM sent :) I was able to work out the ranging issues thanks to some great advice from Doug Thompson. His articles are a big help if you're working with this API. Hopefully with some field testing and feedback from testers I'll be able to put this on the market this week. Anyone else interested in testing it now, let me know.

If your instructions work for a "newbie"... you can count me in too. I got my beacons here waiting for some company.

Hopefully they will. I'm busy writing them up now. I think this is taking longer than coding the actual plugin.... With any luck I should have something for you guys to test tomorrow. Hang Tight, I think it'll be worth it :)

Just sent some links over guys, check your PM and THANKS!!!

@ATRAIN53 Are you going to offer this plugin on the market. I would be willing to purchase it. iBeacons are an area of great interest of many teachers and would love to be able to use this technology in their classrooms. The Apple Distinguished Educator community forums have been buzzing about this lately, especially after the 7.1 update. Thanks. Brian

Hi ATRAIN53, I have been looking into beacons as well and am really pleased to stumble across this old (but fast updating) forum post. I liked the look of the RadBeacon too at $29, but was shocked at their $50 delivery/handling cost! If it is not too late for plugin testers, I would love to see what you have got. At any rate, I'll be first up when it hits the plugin marketplace. Thanks. Chris

@atrain I would love to test your plugin with my beacons if your offer is still on the table. Thanks.

-double-

Awesome, good to see some interest in it. Sounds like Susan also wants to discuss it more with devs... It's almost market ready, I have noticed issues with ranging in my testing and was trying to hammer these out before I put it on the market. I'm curious if the iOS 7.1 update addresses any of those. I hoped to have some time over the weekend to upgrade a device to 7.1 and test and repackage the plugin, but too much basketball and was at the Hawks game last night. Let me see if I can wrap it up today and get a version ready for testing. This is def an busy week with March Madness and Bracketology studies. @$50 shipping???? Wow, that some serious markup. My order was $29 total, no tax or shipping fees with and Radius who used Amazon to process the order. You verified those charges with them via email? You only need the $29 model since you can configure it yourself. (The $39 model is the same device but they charge you $10 to configure it)

Yes, I emailed Radius and they confirmed the $50 delivery/handling charges. They say - "The shipping cost is what the carrier actually charges with no up charges." Perhaps because I am in the UK. Amazingly, its another $50 on top of that for expedited shipping! Same costs for one or one hundred though. I'll stick with testing via their software solutions for now...

Hi All, Great to see the BT community excited about iBeacons and geofencing in general. We've just released the v2.01 of our Android SDK including outdoor geofencing and indoor geofencing using iBeacons. The team is having a lot of fun with iBeacons (Kontakt, Estimote, Gimbal...) and the opportunities are huge! We'll be more than happy to help with your coding and answer all of your questions on the BT forum or on the GeoMoby's one (https://www.geomoby.com/forum/). We would love to see some killer apps out of the BT platform! Another good news is that our web API will be finalised very soon so that you will be able to integrate geofencing capabilities into your own backend system, web and mobile apps! If you want to test our SDKs, just sign-up with "BUZZ2014" discount code and ask for a demo app or grab our working code samples here: https://github.com/geomoby. I sent an email to Susan in order to organise a couple of webinars and walk you through our platform. Stay tuned! Developer documentation is here: https://geomoby.com/admin/doc/ Download page here: https://geomoby.com/admin/files/ User guide (non technical): https://www.geomoby.com/admin/doc/user_guide -Chris GeoMoby CEO

Just got this from Passkit: https://passkit.com/buy-ibeacon/?utm_source=MailingList&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GemTot+Promo+to+iBeacon+Signups Similar to RadBeacon and $25 a piece. Ryan

Great article by Doug Thompson here concerning some bugs in ios 7.1 and iBeacons. http://beekn.net/2014/05/beacon-bug-apple-loses-ibeacon-ranging-drives-developers-mad/ Doug gave me some great suggestions to tweek my code for the plugin and I'm not sure if this is the issue I keep running into or not. But the fact this stuff is so buggy is keeping me from putting something on the market. It's hard enough to build the plugin and make it work, so if the Apple API isn't working there's no way I can fix any support issues that will surely arise once people try to use the code! bummer :(