Beacon(or BLE device) extended feature for monitoring region

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I'm working on the project which make use of iBeacons or special BLE devices to monitor certain region and track information based on people with bluetooth enabled devices passing by the region.

More specifically, the there are two main features.

First is to send appropriate notification to user with app installed on their bluetooth enabled device when they pass by one of beacons

Second is that each beacons keep track of number of people with bluetooth enabled devices passing by its region. Thus it should be able to count number of any devices without app installed and should be able to somehow send the data to server by itself

I know that beacon itself is not communicable with other device but only can advertise small chunk of data (UUID, major and minor) over the air. So first functionality can be implemented with just normal beacon device.

but the challenge is the second feature that beacon or BLE device should be able to keep scanning nearby devices, count the those discovered devices, instead of connecting them, and send this data to server.

Is there any chipset, beacon or BLE device that support both above functionalities? if so then does anyone know which manufactureer or company make such device?

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iosbluetoothbluetooth-lowenergyibeaconiot
The second part will,be a challenge as most Bluetooth devices such as phones do not advertise unless they are in discoverable mode (legacy bluetooth) or running an app to advertise a BLE service. Also iOS devices randomise their MAC address periodically to prevent the sort of tracking your are attempting. – Paulw11

1 Answers

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I do not believe there are off the shelf devices that will do the second use case you mention, although some companies like Euclid Analytics offer a paid service that does this with their hardware.

I have worked on building devices to sniff traffic for this use case myself. The basic idea is to install small computers with a WiFi and/or Bluetooth interface and use it to constantly scan for traffic and record unique MAC addresses (in promiscuous mode for WiFi). The main trick with this is that the device must have one of these interfaces on and active at all times for it to work. This is ofen not the case unless WiFi is enabled on the phone and it is doing an active search for known WiFi networks.

Collecting and analyzing this data is no simple task. This is why companies like Euclid exist, and you can't just buy such a sensor on Amazon.