How to overwrite iBeacon properties such as Minor/Major/txPower on Android?

Question

I am trying to implement my own universal pattern to deal with every kind of iBeacons. Till now I had most contact with Estimote beacons. Estimote API allows me to connect with beacon and change parameter programatically. However patterns I am creating are based on http://developer.radiusnetworks.com/ android lib. I have finished implementing almost everything (monitoring, ranging, advertising intervals, setting beacons, checking bluetooth, managing service life on boot/background etc.) but I can't find any option to change iBeacon parameters. Problem is, that their documentation disappeared from their git 3 days ago, examples too. And I have problem.

Is there any general way, maybe low-level, like directly connecting with BLE device via bluetooth, changing some characteristic etc. to change minor/major/txPower programatically? I appreciate any hints in this matter.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, there is no standard way to configure a beacon's identifiers. Each vendor uses a different proprietary technique, some using a Bluetooth connection, some via other means, and some do not allow it at all.

These proprietary techniques are generally not published. So if you want to make something universal, you will have a big task of getting each vendor's configuration spec (or reverse engineering it if unpublished), and implementing each one.

As the author of the library you mention, I can assure you it contains no code to do this configuration for any beacon. That library was for detection, not configuration.