BLE Mini iBeacon (redbearlab)

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I want to make a simple iBeacon test where an Arduino LED lights up when an iPhone with the proper application installed is nearby.

Quick question: Is this possible with the BLE Mini from Redbearlab and an Arduino board? (1)

I notice that in general, most iBeacons trigger things on the phone (like a notification) But I want it the other way around. Without any user interaction (except moving) I want to trigger something on the Arduino board.

If possible, how would I start doing this? Anyone with some resources or experience? (2)

PS: I also have the BLE shield from Redbearlab, but I understand that it can't act as an iBeacon? It needs manual connection and user input? (3)

Thanks!

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iosarduinobluetooth-lowenergyibeacon
The iBeacon concept is a one way communication from beacon to device. You would have to use some other protocol over BLE to do something the other way round. – Mike Pollard
Well, that's bad news. Guess there's no other way to trigger hardware when a phone is nearby without starting an app? (Thanks anyway) – Lapidus
You would have to start an app, yes. However, once you do that, having the app woken up by the iBeacon mechanism then connect to an additional service should do what you want. – Chris Stratton
Just to add to this, the hardware (cc254x chip) of the BLE Mini is capable of being programmed to transmit iBeacon-style advertisements, or implement various custom services with readable and/or writable characteristics, or both. What is unclear is if the software framework provided by the board vendor yet supports this, or if you would have to program the bare chip yourself. – Chris Stratton

1 Answers

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You can get similar results, but it will need to be a bit more complex. I don't think that the BLE Mini can be used as an iBeacon, but you probably don't want that anyway because iBeacons cannot send data and communicate in the way you want. You might want to try this: Using the regular bluetooth low energy api in iOS, you can get notified when a device meeting your specifications is within range, and get it's signal strength. Use this to decide if you are close enough, then connect to the device (which is set up in peripheral mode) and send it some data that will turn the LED on, or whatever else you want. Just know that using BLE signal strength is very unreliable for distance measurement, to the point of being almost completely useless. This means that you will need to start the app once, but then iOS will wake it up in the background whenever it detects that you are near the BLE device (until you explicitly quit the app or restart the phone).