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Learning ibeacon

You're reading from   Learning ibeacon

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Product type Paperback
Published in Nov 2014
Publisher
ISBN-13 9781784397128
Length 196 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Author (1):
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Craig Gilchrist Craig Gilchrist
Author Profile Icon Craig Gilchrist
Craig Gilchrist
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Table of Contents (11) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Welcome to iBeacon FREE CHAPTER 2. Detecting Beacons – Showing an Advert 3. Broadcasting Advertisements – Sending Offers 4. Ranging Beacons – Hunting for Treasure 5. Detecting Beacons in the Background – Location Dating 6. Leaving Regions – Don't Forget Your Stuff 7. Vendor SDKs – Buying and Configuring Beacons 8. Advanced Tutorial – iBeacon Museum 9. iBeacon Security – Understanding the Risks Index

Understanding a range using RSSI

Obviously, one of the most important factors that your app needs to be able to understand is the distance of mobile devices from the beacon itself. We'll cover this in depth in Chapter 4, Ranging Beacons – Hunting for Treasure, when we'll build a treasure hunt app that relies on the range of the beacon. For now, it's important to know that there's one extra piece of information that is broadcasted by iBeacons.

iBeacons broadcast one extra byte of data known as measured power. Measured power is a value representing the received strength signal indication (RSSI) value at a distance of 1 meter. RSSI is measured in dBm and indicates the measurable signal strength of the beacon, which decreases with distance. This RSSI value varies across the vendor beacon implementations and so isn't very reliable to determine the distance. This is where measured power comes into play.

When iBeacon vendors are configuring their hardware iBeacons, it's important that they configure the measured power broadcast value accurately because the Core Location framework uses this value to determine the distance of the beacon and converts it into a distance that you, as a developer, can utilize.

Tip

Think of the measured power value as a way of making an otherwise unreliable source of distance measuring reliable. In essence, it's a translation value that you don't see as a developer, but it's important for you to understand its value.

You have been reading a chapter from
Learning ibeacon
Published in: Nov 2014
Publisher:
ISBN-13: 9781784397128
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