Bluetooth Beacons are hardware transmitters - a class of Bluetooth low
energy (LE) devices that broadcast their identifier to nearby portable electronic devices. The technology
enables smartphones, tablets and other devices to perform actions when in close proximity to a beacon.
Bluetooth Framework includes feature that allows your application to monitor Bluetooth Beacons and to advertise as Bluetooth Beacon.
Monitoring Bluetooth LE Beacons
Bluetooth Framework includes the wclBluetoothLeBeaconWatcher class that allows your application to monitor Bluetooth LE devices and capture its advertisement frames. The class provides parsers for the following Bluetooth LE Advertisement frames: iBeacon (Proximity Beacon), Eddystone UID, Eddystone URL, Eddystone TLM and Alt Beacon. Unknown frame types are reported to an application as raw bytes array so application can handle any type of frames.
The Bluetooth Framework package includes the Beacons demo application that shows how to monitor Bluetooth LE devices and capture its advertisement frames. Bluetooth Framework supports Bluetooth LE Beacons Monitoring feature on Windows 10 platform with Microsoft Bluetooth drivers and on any Windows platforms with BLED112 USB Bluetooth dongle.
Advertising As Bluetooth LE Beacons
Bluetooth Framework includes the wclBluetoothLeAdvertiser class that switches your application into Bluetooth LE Advertiser mode. The class allows to advertise few predefined advertisements as well as any custom advertisement (there are some restrictions described below).
SUPPORTED ADVERTISEMENT TYPES
The following advertisement types are reserved and are not allowed:
| Data Type | Constant (wclUUIDs} | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x00 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_NONE | Empty flags |
| 0x01 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_FLAGS | Flags |
| 0x08 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_LOCAL_NAME_SHORT | Shortened Local Name |
| 0x09 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_LOCAL_NAME_COMPLETE | Complete Local Name |
| 0x1B | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_ADDRESS | LE Bluetooth Device Address |
| 0x1C | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_ROLE | LE Role |
The following advertisement types are system-reserved and are not allowed if the advertisement is used with Microsoft Bluetooth driver:
| Data Type | Constant (wclUUIDs} | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x02 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_SERVICES_16_MORE | Incomplete List of 16-bit Service UUIDs |
| 0x03 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_SERVICES_16_ALL | Complete List of 16-bit Service Class UUIDs |
| 0x04 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_SERVICES_32_MORE | Incomplete List of 32-bit Service UUIDs |
| 0x05 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_SERVICES_32_ALL | Complete List of 32-bit Service Class UUIDs |
| 0x06 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_SERVICES_128_MORE | Incomplete List of 128-bit Service UUIDs |
| 0x07 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_SERVICES_128_ALL | Complete List of 128-bit Service Class UUIDs |
| 0x0A | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_TXPOWER | Tx Power Level |
| 0x0D | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_COD | Class of Device |
| 0x0E | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_PAIRING_HASH_C | Simple Pairing Hash C192 |
| 0x0F | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_PAIRING_RAND_R | Simple Pairing Randomizer R192 |
| 0x10 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_DEVICE_ID | Security Manager TK Values |
| 0x11 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_SM_OOB_FLAGS | Security Manager Out-of-Band Flags |
| 0x12 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_CON_INTERVALS | Slave Connection Interval Range |
| 0x17 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_PUBLIC_TARGET_ADDRESS | Public Target Address |
| 0x18 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_RANDOM_TARGET_ADDRESS | Random Target Address |
| 0x19 | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_APPEARANCE | Appearance |
| 0x1A | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_ADV_INTERVAL | Advertising Interval |
| 0x1D | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_PAIRING_HASH_C_256 | Simple Pairing Hash C256 |
| 0x1E | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_PAIRING_RAND_R_256 | Simple Pairing Randomizer R256 |
| 0x3D | LE_GAP_AD_TYPE_3D_INFO | 3D Information Data |
EXTENDED ADVERTISEMENT
Starting from version 7.14.1.0 Bluetooth Framework allows to enable the Extended Advertisement Format when used with Microsoft Bluetooth drivers on Windows 10 and above. The Extended Advertisement is the feature of the Bluetooth 5 specification so to be able to use it your Bluetooth module must support such features.
The Extended Advertisement Format can be enabled by settings the UseExtendedAdvertisement property of the wclBluetoothLeAdvertiser. When this property is set to True the three additional properties are used during advertisement:
- Anonymous - If set to True the device address is not included in the advertisement heade.
- IndlucdeTxRssi - If set to True the transmit power level is included in the advertisement header.
- PrefferedTxRssi - If enabled (to disable set the property's value to -127 requests that the radio use the indicated transmit power level for the advertisement.
If your application enables the Extened Advertisement by setting the UseExtendedAdvertisement property to True but your hardware or OS does not support this feature the WCL_E_BLUETOOTH_LE_EXT_ADV_NOT_SUPPORTED error will be returned when an application starts the advertismeent.
DEMO APPLICATION
The Bluetooth Framework package includes the Beacons demo application that shows how to enable Bluetooth LE Beacon Advertising. Bluetooth Framework supports Bluetooth LE Beacons Advertising feature only on Windows 10 platform with Microsoft Bluetooth drivers and on any Windows platforms with BLED112 USB Bluetooth dongle.