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Apple explicitly discourages background iBeacon Ranging:

To promote consistent results in your app, use beacon ranging only while your app is in the foreground.

If your app is in the foreground, it is likely that the device is in the user’s hand and that the device’s view to the target beacon has fewer obstructions.

Running in the foreground also promotes better battery life by processing incoming beacon signals only while the user is actively using the device.

Should I choose to go naughty and do some ranging in the background (after entering a beacon range when monitoring), what consequences should I expect? (except for the famous 10-seconds running window before being put to sleep again?

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Adam Matan
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In most cases, there is no reason to worry about battery drain from casual background ranging.

I've read that statement before, but I don't think it makes any sense, and suspect it was written before the CoreLocation iBeacon design was complete. (The statement has been there since the iOS 7 beta.)

Apple iOS generally enforces that you can only range in the background for 10 seconds at a time, typically triggered by a CLBeaconRegion monitoring entry/exit event. Unless you app is in an extreme situation where it is seeing beacon regions enter and exit all the time, 10 seconds of background bluetooth scanning just can't use that much battery.

Of course, there are techniques where you could range more often, such as requesting location background mode for constant ranging, or requesting an extra 3 minutes of ranging time as described in my blog post here. If you use one of these techniques, you should probably test the impact of your app on battery. But I certainly wouldn't describe doing these things as being "naughty" as long as you do so responsibly.

davidgyoung
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