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I have been reading quite a few things on iBeacon, AltBeacon and URIBeacon. Now as far as I understand, iBeacon is proprietory while other two are open source. URIBeacon is still in its research stage. As I am mostly looking to support Android devices and much more flexibility in terms of defining proximity ID, I am thinking AltBeacon is the best choice among all three. Is there such a thing as AltBeacon approved device? If not, then is it possible to build my own device on AltBeacon specs?

Just want to understand the kind of restrictions AltBeacon impose on manufacturing the device.

Sam
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1 Answers1

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AltBeacon is completely open source, and you are welcome to build a device that implements its format without any restrictions or royalties. While there is currently no formal certification program, you should take care to make sure you meet the specifications if you want to distribute a device and label it is AltBeacon compatible. Radius Networks makes a number of tools that parse AltBeacon transmissions, such as the Android Beacon Library, which you are welcome to use in testing.

Full disclosure: I am Chief Engineer at Radius Networks, which released the AltBeacon spec.

davidgyoung
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  • Hi David, thanks for replying. Can you point me to any good (may be cheap) altbeacon device manufacturers or any resource which can help me in building one? Would be interested in testing out both. – Sam Apr 14 '15 at 00:48
  • Radius Networks sells a AltBeacon-compatible [RadBeacons](http://store.radiusnetworks.com/collections/all) in a variety of packages starting at $21. (Similarly priced AltBeacon models are available from Gemtot.) You probably have seen the reference implementation for Linux here: https://github.com/RadiusNetworks/altbeacon-reference You can easily run these scripts on a $25 Raspberry Pi, which is one of the easiest ways of building a small AltBeacon. – davidgyoung Apr 14 '15 at 01:14
  • Sure. Will try them out and try to share the results. – Sam Apr 14 '15 at 01:19