I've just setup a red bear labs blend micro as a beacon, everything looks fine and boots accordingly with feedback in the serial monitor. However when I try to detect the beacon nothing shows up.

My first thought was this was down to software on my phone (iPhone) but when I try on an android it still fails. I then swapped the software on the blend micro to the BLEPeripheral simple chat example, all worked fine.

That leads me to think the blend micro is working and it cant be the phone (as many phones all fail) so there must be something I'm missing with the setup of the software.

The pin outs are correct for the blend micro (6, 7, 4) and the beacon appears to be advertising itself when i use a generic bluetooth scanner to find it (pictures attached).

Does anyone have any idea why the scanner finds it but the physical web application cant? I'm out of ideas as to how I can further debug this?

Hello Google Team,

I was wondering if it would be possible to increase the scan time for the validator tests when connecting to the UriBeacon. When I run the validator app on my firmware with an advertisement interval of 1285ms, the app has a difficult time connecting to the beacon but if I put the advertisement interval of my UriBeacon to something a lot quicker, such as 100ms, the app works perfectly. I noticed that the UriBeacon sample scanner app has a menu option for scan time, i think this could help with validating beacons that have an advertisement rate greater than or equal to 1285ms.

Thank You,

Cory Mast

1. Press Config

Expected result:

• Scanner constantly scanning

Actual Result:

• Scanner is active for 2 seconds but then turns off for more than 10 seconds

res/values/strings.xml has too many values. Separate them into more appropriate files.

Need tests for:

• ProtocolV1
• ProtocolV2

Name too close to UriBeaconConfig.

Right now only the uri gets disabled when writing to the UriBeacon.

Investigate whether Travis CI build times can be improved by saving the environment or some other magic

When the only operation is unlock, the library returns immediately and closes the connection without waiting for the result from the beacon.

The Avg Rssi is shown in the Sample App during scans. We currently have a hard coded alpha of 0.5 which means that the average is 50% of the most recent value plus 50% of all the other values.

It is useful to have a lower alpha, like 20% in order to help in the calibration phase.

During calibration we run the scan for 1 minute and collect the average RSSI at 1 meter.

Allow setting the Average Weight (or alpha) in the settings dialog.

Wasn't totally clear how long the URLs could be but Jake spelled it out very clearly:

Let's say we have a URL of the form "https://www..com". "https://www." is encoded in the scheme prefix. ".com" is encoded within the URL field but as a single byte. This leaves 16 bytes for , which amounts to 16 characters in almost all cases.

Would love to see that added somewhere here, maybe in this section: https://github.com/google/uribeacon#short-urls

The second table in Service Characteristics in missing the Flags characteristic.

https://github.com/google/uribeacon/blob/master/specification/ConfigService.md#3-service-characteristics

Looks like the scanRecord#parseFromBytes() method should be a bit more resilient when it comes to parsing Manufacturer Specific Data.

My FlowerPower device advertises the following data:

0x02010611061BC5D5A50200BAAFE211A88400FAE13902FF001209466C6F77657220706F776572203031414505120A006400020A00

As far as I understand, the ...02FF00... portion looks like a bogus Manufacturer Specific Data, that generates an exception in scanRecord#parseFromBytes(), with the following stack trace when at position 23 (the FF in the byte array):

01-06 19:23:13.896    8619-8619/org.uribeacon.sample E/AndroidRuntime﹕ FATAL EXCEPTION: main
    Process: org.uribeacon.sample, PID: 8619
    java.lang.NegativeArraySizeException: -1
            at org.uribeacon.scan.compat.ScanRecord.extractBytes(ScanRecord.java:295)
            at org.uribeacon.scan.compat.ScanRecord.parseFromBytes(ScanRecord.java:250)
            at org.uribeacon.sample.UriBeaconScanActivity$LeScanCallback.onLeScan(UriBeaconScanActivity.java:290)
            at android.bluetooth.BluetoothAdapter$2.onScanResult(BluetoothAdapter.java:1704)
            at android.bluetooth.le.BluetoothLeScanner$BleScanCallbackWrapper$1.run(BluetoothLeScanner.java:330)
            at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:739)
            at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
            at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:135)
            at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5221)
            at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
            at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:372)
            at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:899)
            at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:694)

While it is probably a bug on the manufacturer's end to not have included the mandatory 2-bytes manufacturer ID in their FF field (my guess is they wanted a custom data field with value 0x00 and didn't want to use two extra bytes for encoding the manufacturer ID?), the parsing code should be made more robust and ignore a DATA_TYPE_MANUFACTURER_SPECIFIC_DATA field with length < 3 (1 byte field type + 2 bytes manufacturer ID).

We have implemented the UriBeacon on our LilyPad-nano51822.
The Lilypad-nano51822 are working with the "Tickless" technology and the power consumption are avg. 26uA with a LED blink.

UriBeacon V2 source code for 51822:
https://github.com/ucxpresso/nano51822/tree/master/examples/cookbook/ble_uri_beacon_v2

Note:
The code provides a button to easy to change the mode (Normal and Configure) without reset.

Getting Started for developer:
http://www.embeda.com.tw/ucxpresso/?article=getting-started-2

Purchase the kit:
http://www.amazon.com/uCXpresso-LilyPad-nano51822-Arduino-iBeacon/dp/B00RE6CL4G/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1423637775&sr=1-1

Our Web Site:
http://www.ucxpresso.net

I bought some beacons from Blesh to have a play with URIBeacons. I have two problems:

1. Using either the Blesh app, or the Phyweb app (both on iOS) I get stuck on the 'reading' step of configuring the beacon. I get to the 'press the config button' step, I press the config button on the beacon, the phone recognises that immedaitely, but then puts up a 'Reading' or 'Tap to cancel' message which never goes away. I did manage to get this to work initially, so I'm perplexed about why this is now consistently failing in the same way.
2. Neither the Blesh nor Phyweb apps are available in Google play from my Nexus 7. I searched the web using chrome for 'google play physical web' and then tapped the top result. I was prompted to open in the Google play native app, said yes, and then got "No results found for "pub:The Physical Web Team". I think that's because you've designated it as only available for phones (and I think a similar issue for the Blesh app)

Beacons with no URL are shown having a Tx Power of 0.

I'd like to add and example for the urn:uuid: protocol but I'm not sure what people would do with these.

Can you point me to discussion or reasons for why urn:uuid: was added?

In the UriBeacon Specification Table 3: UriBeacon Advertisement Data Format: the Length field at offset 0 should read 3 instead of 2.

Create a products page (Blesh and Twocanoes initially) with short descriptions and images, linked from README.md

TX Power in the UriBeacon advertising packet is the received power at 0 meters. Because of variables such as antenna size and case design you need to measure this rather than use a data sheet.

Of course it is very difficult to measure power at 0m, so what you do is measure 1m and subtract 41 dBm (the pathloss for 2.4 Ghz Bluetooth radios).

We are in the process of making the 0m change across library and app code. Some still uses 1m.

Submit separate Issues for each component.

At www.iblio.net we have implemented the URI Beacon GATT characteristics tree using specifications for configuring a Bluetooth Low Energy module BEACON and using the Configuration Service described on https://github.com/google/uribeacon/blob/master/specification/ConfigService.md.
I'm using the last Physical Web app version 0.1.830 on an Android 4.4.2 Samsung Galaxy S4 to discover and attempt configuration of my BEACONs during the tests.
I'm not actually able to enter the "Edit URLs" configurations mode from the Physical Web app also when the Lock State characteristic of my module BEACON is 'unlocked' (0).

So, my question is: how a Physical Web app locate beacons in an unlooked state when "Edit URLs" is entered on the app ?

Thanks, Valter.

I don't know what "hidden" flag in the uribeacon really is for. But I have an issue with physical web that I think can be resolved with such a flag. Or perhaps this is what that "hidden" flag is for.

It has to do with the "Edit URL's" feature that every user sees on their smart device's physical web tool. Assume 1000 bored passengers waiting in an Aiport terminal. Many of whom will experiment with the feature and try to select and change found Uri Beacons.

The casual millions of users will never have a need for the feature and should not be confused by having the feature presented to them. Perhaps the feature should only appear once a beacon as been manually (at the beacon) reset into the programming mode.

When displayName == null device name will always be set to deviceAddress.

https://github.com/google/uribeacon/blob/master/android-uribeacon/uribeacon-sample/src/main/java/org/uribeacon/sample/DeviceListAdapter.java#L82

The UriBeacon validator app fails most tests when descriptions are added to private characteristics.

I am currently using a nRF51822 board with a custom service with multiple characteristics alongside the UriBeacon service, and when I add descriptions to the characteristics on my custom service, The validator fails almost immediately. I have seen that the validator will read the characteristic description in my custom service instead of the URI from the data characteristic of the UriBeacon service. Removing the descriptors causes the Validator to pass every test.

after uploading hex file to my beacon, beacon restarted, I press SW2 but still not visible in app or any other BLE scanner

Convert the text Uri to bytes. Here we always add http:// code 03

URI_BYTES="03 echo -n $URI_TEXT | hexdump -v -e '/1 "%02X "'"

code 03 is actually for httpS:// not http://

It should run unit tests of iOS and Android.

I have a question regarding the Lock value upon resetting the URIBeacon. The Configuration Service specification states that the reset value for the Lock should be set to all zeros.

I have flashed my device with a custom value for the Lock and if I reset the URIBeacon it will reset my Lock to all zeros instead of back to my custom lock value.

Is there a plan to implement a way to be able to set the Lock value to something other than all zeros either initially or after a reset occurs?

Thank You

Advertised TX Power Level's type should be int8[4]

I am running the code on a Nexus 9, with Android 5.0.1.
Scan fails to start with the following message :

java.lang.SecurityException: Need BLUETOOTH_PRIVILEGED permission: Neither user 10119 nor current process has android.permission.BLUETOOTH_PRIVILEGED.
at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1540)
at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1493)
at android.bluetooth.IBluetoothGatt$Stub$Proxy.startScan(IBluetoothGatt.java:747)
at android.bluetooth.le.BluetoothLeScanner$BleScanCallbackWrapper.onClientRegistered(BluetoothLeScanner.java:299)
at android.bluetooth.IBluetoothGattCallback$Stub.onTransact(IBluetoothGattCallback.java:56)
at android.os.Binder.execTransact(Binder.java:446)

I found out that the parameters are handled using reflection.

The only compatible setting is the CALLBACK_TYPE_ALL_MATCHES.

In my opinion we could fix the issue by :

• Not using reflection
• Changing the ScanCallback in order to handle these parameters.

I am working on a fix, and will probably post a reply about it.

When calibrating and debugging we like to do long term scans in the sample app but it times out after 15 or 30 seconds.

Add a way in the settings to control the number of seconds for the scan.

Has the uribeacon library been published in a standard artifact repository (like jcenter)? If not, would you all be interested in doing that? It would be helpful when building with maven/gradle to point to that instead of having to throw the binary into the source tree.

New version of DFU requires an INIT packet. Does anyone have an INIT packet for this sample?

Need to update the formulas in this file:

https://github.com/google/uribeacon/blob/master/android-uribeacon/uribeacon-library/src/main/java/org/uribeacon/scan/util/RangingUtils.java

Remove unused Settings in UriBeacon Sample App.

In the config activity, when the "next" button in the keyboard is pressed the focus changes to the "period" field and then to the "Medium" field. The focus should change to the flags field, then period, then "Lowest", etc.

Right now the exception is being used any time the UriBeacon cannot be built.

REF: uribeacon / beacons / RFduino / physical_web / physical_web.ino

The example advdata array shows a value of 0x20 for the Power which represents a +32dBm power setting. Probably meant 20 decimal.

The bluetooth specification defines the range to be -100dBm to +20dBm. The example is using uint8_t for the advdata array. The Power field should be a sint8 or int8_t with range 0x9C to 0x14.

@androidcodecn Let's use this issue to track support questions.

Please add to this issue: the web site URL for your product, the hardware platform, and any questions you have.

You should look at the Validation App and Configuration Appl (sample) under release and the reference implementations.

The definition of UriBeacon Tx Power Level on the following page is not clarified.
https://github.com/google/uribeacon/tree/master/specification

It should let people know what the value is and how we could measure it and what value to set.

Optimize the Travis CI setup...

Not sure if this is the right place. The physical web app mentions uploading URL to beacons from the smart devices. It seems they refer to V1 and V2 beacons. Where is the specification protocol that is expected to be in the beacon to make this possible?

It needs to be adjusted to the following (?).

  public static double distanceFromRssi(int rssi, int txPowerAtSource) {
    int pathLoss = txPowerAtSource - rssi;
    // Distance calculation
    return Math.pow(10, pathLoss / 20.0);
  }

cc @schilit @roywant

We are writing an implementation of the chrome.bluetooth* chrome apps apis over in the Chrome Apps for Mobile project.

To help us do so, we have found it useful to take advantage of your BT scanning implementation. However, it would help us a bit organizationally if this part of the uribeacon repo was ripped out into its own project. This isn't a blocker for us, but we think it is quite useful on its own and perhaps others would like to use it as well.

Our intern Rui (@oahziur) can elaborate on the specific parts that we are using and how he has needed to modify them for our needs.