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I was wondering :

When we enter a shop, using the app shop, we receive for example a notification.

But what if the beacon is down, and it's replaced with another beacon, with a different UUID etc .. ? Are the UUID/Major/Minor value of a beacon not harcoded but in a database on the server ? How it's fetched ?

Thanks you

3 Answers3

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The UUID of an iBeacon is not related in any way to its MAC address. It is a value that is assigned to the beacon by the beacon owner. Some beacon vendors have a specific UUID or range of UUIDs while others allow any UUID to be used.

If a particular beacon failed then the replacement would likely be configured with the same UUID.

When the app detects a particular beacon it needs to refer to some database, either in the app or on a server, that gives "meaning" to the particular UUID/major/minor combination so it is possible that the database could be updated to reflect the new hardware but this is less likely than simply configuring the replacement hardware with the same values

Paulw11
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  • Yep but I mean, to detect the beacon, that's necessary to have the uuid, so it's either barcoded either fetched from a database ? –  Feb 03 '15 at 12:40
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It is a good practice to not hard code your beacon identifiers in your app. You can build your app so on launch, it contacts a web service to download a list of identifiers to search for. You can build your own or use an off the shelf service like my company's ProximityKit that does exactly this.

Of course, if you are relying on beacon detections to launch your app, your app won't get auto launched to download the new beacon identifiers if the beacon ids change in advance. The user will have to manually do the launch to get the new list.

There are a few ways around this:

  1. Set the identifiers on replaced beacons so they are the same as the old ones.
  2. If you know you cannot set the identifiers, broaden the beacon region filter for auto launch so it matches a wide variety of beacon identifiers. On iOS you can search for all beacons with a shared UUID. On Android, you can search for all beacons regardless of identifiers.
davidgyoung
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When you initialise Beacon Region then you need to identify at least UUID and it is either hardcoded with in the app or can be placed on the server and should be retrieved from server before calling initialising Beacon Region.

NOTE:You should have a copy of all beacons UUIDs,majors and minors for future purposes

But suppose your Beacon goes out of order then there's a backup plan.

Follow below said steps:

1.Install Estimote-iOS or android app 2.Place the new beacon near to your device and start ranging beacons in estimote app. 3.Then you need to login with your cloud account in your app and configure new beacon(i.e edit your beacon's UUID.)You can even edit major,minor etc 4.Save those settings and your new beacon is configured and ready to use.

Happy Coding :)

aroragourav
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