iBeacons......How to setup?

Is there a video or help in setting up iBeacons? I just got 3 of them, for my 3 tv rooms, and configured them (They are Gimbal beacons $5/ea!!!, configured as iBeacon, and iBeacon (An apple app, see them).

How do I tell which one is in which room in the Settings? I do not see a place to specify which iBeacon (of my three), it should use to trigger the events for a room?

I must be missing something.

This FAQ describes how to setup iBeacons:

roomieremote.com/faq/#proximity

If you're not using the recommended iBeacons from Estimote as described there, you will need to enter your private Roomie ID ("home" in your Roomie configuration file) manually into whatever configuration interface is provided by your beacons.

Thank you.

Is there any way to support the Gimbal iBeacons natively? They are easy to buy at $5 each, and easy to change to iBeacon support from their native support.

What would supporting them "natively" mean to you? Any iBeacon certified by Apple should work fine, but anything other than Estimote just requires you to tell it what your home ID is.

Thank you.

ok, but I do not see a place to put home id in their config files.

When I configure them for iBeacon, I enter a UUID, a long series of numbers I make up along with a major and minor of 1 and 1

Is that UUID number where I would put the home id from the roomie config?

Yes, the home ID is a UUID.

Thank you.

Where is the roomie config file on an IOS device?

To get your Home ID in order to configure third-party non-Estimote beacons, backup to Dropbox and open the file "Roomie.plist" with a good text editor. Under the word "home" will be a long series of letters and numbers in this basic format:

CD091974-AB7A-4EF1-ADA7-7693A5B51033

That's what you need (the above is just an example). Remember to keep that ID private.

Thank you.

This is great. Gimbal sells ibeacons, well their version, for $5 each.

All you do is reload them as iBeacons and put in your home id as UUID and they work

Cheap! The have temperature sensors in them too!

The only downside is that when the battery dies, you need to reload then from a website to their bluetooth. They do tell you when the power is getting low and you can change batteries without losing the firmware (you have about 15 seconds)..

Philhu - how did you get the Gimbal's to be recognized by Roomie? I've configured then with the UUID and appropriate major and minors but can't get the Roomie software to recognize them...

In case it helps someone else, I could not find the "home" attribute in the Roomie.plist using the TextEdit.app. I had to use Xcode to find it. I assumed you would use the UUID's of the Rooms, but after messing with that for awhile, it seemed to me that there was a reason the instructions specifically said "home". Kinda screwed me up as I have two homes (each with only one room) set up.

Jim

Any alternative methods to get the UUID without OSX?

It's just a text file. The UUID of the home you need for non-Estimote/Apple iBeacons is right at the top. Even Notepad.exe would probably show it to you. Just don't make changes/save it.

Thank you.

Note for anyone else trying to set up a Gimbal iBeacon, this is helpful to show how to set up a "iBeacon Configuration" which is not set up by default: stackoverflow.com/questions/2131 ... -discovery

Also, do not turn on the Estimote configuration option within Roomie, once you configure your iBeacons simply turn on Automatic Room Detection and you are set.

How close can you set an iBeacon to trigger a command? Can it be as short as needing to touch the beacon?

I am trying to make sense out of this Estimote setup. A few things don't line up for me:

1) You mention "This FAQ describes how to setup iBeacons:

roomieremote.com/faq/#proximity"

• Is that the only bit of instruction out there? I have looked for more but can't find any. Couple of problems with these instructions:

a) you can't set the major and minor ID's UNLESS you also change the UUID. Otherwise it will correctly state that setting is already taken (by someone else in the world doing the same thing). So you HAVE to set the UUID first

b) you can't set the minor to a value of 0, it has to be at least 1. The IOS app does not let you select 0

c) seems that you have to set the UUID to the same value as your UUIS in the Roomie.plist then? That is kind of the same situation as with the Gimbal beacons then, anyway??

d) the Roomie App mentions the beacons are configured via "Wifi Synchronization". This is not mention in the instructions at all :frowning:

I am confused and would like a more complete instruction page. Should I dig out the Roomie UUID from the plist and manually type it into each Estimote beacon ?

Estimote has definitely introduced some confusion into this since the instructions were written as we've learned in recent weeks helping people in support. Here are some revisions:

<ul>

<li>Do not use the Estimote beacon option in Roomie. Estimote now considers their beacon a worldwide thing which they try to prevent duplicate IDs on. While seemingly nonsensical in the context of a 70m max Bluetooth proximity network, that's what they do so their beacon UUID is useless and has been removed from Roomie's next release.</li>

<li>Set any Minor ID you want for now. It doesn't matter, it will just say "Unknown Device" on other devices. Estimote suddenly stopped allowing zero globally for an unknown reason, so use a non-Estimote beacon or use the number 1 for instance. A future release of Roomie will clean this up so you don't need to think about it.</li>

<li>Yes, you should use your Home ID as your Beacon UUID now. This was always the case with non-Estimote beacons, and now is the case for all beacons. We wanted to avoid users ever needing to enter that by riding the Estimote beacon, but that obviously didn't work so you'll need to enter the "home" key UUID into any third-party beacons as explained in many other places.</li>

<li>We are evaluating different vendors for a recommended iBeacon hardware solution and will announce any results as they are completed.</li>

</ul>

In reference to the previous post, nothing new about this, but answering the question, references to an iOS device for a Proximity Action can select any device running Roomie with your configuration on your network – which means they will be listed in your Wi-Fi Synchronization list.

Thank you.

May I recommend Gimbal ibeacon devices?

They are firmware loadable, work with Roomie, and are inexpensive, being about $5 each.

I played with them for a while in the summer, never finished but they do work with Homeid being the uuid as mentioned above.

Ok, that helps, I see the disenchantment with the Estimotes. So in summary the Estimote Beacon will need the same integration steps as any other beacon. Moving forward, I still need to make that work though…

1 - I have set the UUID on all of them to the home UUID I found in the Roomie.plist. Actually that was pretty easy. I set the major ID to a few room numbers (I have three Estimotes for three rooms, as a start). I set the minor ID to 1, even though we don't care.

2 - in the Roomie App, under SETTINGS, MONITOR, I turn Automatic Room Detection ON. I also turn Use Estimote Beacon OFF (guess will never use that check box ever again)

3 - now what? I can't see the room switching happening. Is there another step to take?.

4 - Don't actually know what to expect either, meaning: should it go to the specific room page even if you are on the main screen? should it switch only while you are on a room panel? will the room page close when you leave the room? Can you still switch to other oohs panels while you are in the room or will it keep forcing the room that is detected? etc. Lots of unknowns on this checkbox.

5 - Coupled with that, I do not know how to get any (diagnostic) feedback from the App when it comes to the beacons. Is there any?

6 - They also do not show up as a selectable device because they are not "Wifi Integrated", so I can't select to execute any actions based on their proximity. I read in another thread this was not an logical use scenario? So this will not be possible? (Seems odd, since you are doing basically exactly that inside in the Roomie App on a hidden link, with the "action" being "open page". There is no need to couple the Beacons to Wifi integration: just use their Major ID. The logic is already there, just need a GUI element to select it)

But back to the order of the day: I need help getting it to work at all.

Thanks Philhu for your suggestion on the Gimbal, I will look into that for the next bunch! Unfortunately, I just spend $100 on three estimotes because they were recommended by Roomie :frowning: I would have preferred the $15 route!

Confirm your Estimotes are working with the Estimote app, power cycle your iOS device. Make sure location information is turned on in iOS Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Roomie. At that point a properly configured iBeacon with appropriate UUID will advertise its Major ID as a room number.

Your Roomie, if Automatic Room Detection is turned on, will show a list of all nearby detected rooms even if they are out of range allowing you to see the distance updated regularly to tune your setup. That's shown right under the Max Distance setting in Roomie's Settings -> Proximity Automation panel.

Thank you.

To Philhu and other folks shopping for iBeacons:

Here is a great summary of what brands are available

aislelabs.com/reports/beacon-guide/

The Gimbal's seem to have a pretty bad battery life :frowning:

Still would like comparative pricing and info on where to buy...

the Gimbals have very bad life... Batteries last about 25 DAYS.

Maybe thats why they are only $5! :slight_smile:

Wondering if Roomie support has seen <a href="http://www.aislelabs.com/reports/beacon-guide/" target="_blank">this excellent guide</a> to the latest iBeacon hardware devices. In the FAQ you mention that you are looking into recommending a iBeacon solution, this guide may help you. I think i'm going to order 3 beacons from Kontakt.io since they have the longest battery life and none of us care about the extra functionality of iBeacons.

That's an impressive overview. We have tried a few more and can recommend at least one specific model, and the model we will mention is so new that it was not included in that overview. The Radius Network RadBeacon X2 meets all of the needs we found lacking in prior beacons. The most important problem with early iBeacons was battery life. All of the Estimotes we originally got for instance are now dead. Yes, in principle, we could slice them open with box cutters and perform surgery nearly destroying them to try to ressurect them (we actually did do this, it was quite involved). No thanks. Meanwhile, the RadBeacon X2 uses standard AA batteries for long, long battery life and very easy to open/replace batteries. Both their iOS app and OS X app immediately detected and configured their beacons. It was a good experience. These are brand new though and our experience with them has been brief.

We did also try RadBeacon USB mentioned as untested in the article. These are quite nifty because they will never need a battery change – they use simple USB power adapters which are literally everywhere these days anyway. They were as easy to configure as the new X2. However, we did notice a markedly lower power output of the signal on the USB model, perhaps because they're so miniature in size. If it works for your environment, we'd recommend the X2. Roomie itself will just no longer care as of 3.1. If you have something that supports the iBeacon standard, it should work fine within the confines of the device's expected performance.

Thank you.

Is there a timeframe for 3.1?

I ask because the RadBeacon X2 are available today. I might buy one for testing.

BTW, the Gimbals I bought with the guaranteed 6 month lifetime, 3 lasts 20 days, 1 lasted 1 week. All with new batteries. Asking them, they say switching them to use Apple ibeacon protocol, makes them use ALOT of power. So they are gone. They used CR2 technology batteries.