2017 beacon thoughts

Posted on
Thu Jan 05, 2017 4:10 pm
mundmc offline
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2017 beacon thoughts

First, Karl, you are awesome for your continued contributions.

I'm curious what experience other users have had with different beacons.

XY3: I enthusiastically ordered 5 xy3 beacons once my pi was running Karl's disk image. I believe I later read xy3 goes into power save mode, and doesn't work for pibeacon. This was my initial experience: the xy3 stopped broadcasting unless I hit the button. For reasons unclear, it now works, and it continues to broadcast. I suspect this is, in part, from linking them to my iPhone and enabling the "Keep Near" function, though that's just a guess.

Tile: I'm uncertain what model Tiles I have, but it's likely a 2016 release. These do not appear to be detected at all.

iPhone: I'm not inclined to use a separate app running on the phone, mainly as it is an additional step that can introduce complications. (That said, I DO use EventScripts on my host iMac to detect paired phones, and it works well enough to use it for security purposes)

Radius: Should arrive today.




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Posted on
Thu Jan 05, 2017 4:47 pm
polycron offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

I am currently using the XY2 and XY3 beacons. I had the same issue you had with the XY3's going into a sleep mode. After I associated them to my cell phone using their XY FindIt software the beacons started working full time and no longer went to sleep. I don't think I used the find-near capabilities but I can't promise that. I ended up deleting the app from my phone once I took control of each of the beacons through the software. I found the software on my android device was killing my battery.

What I like about the XY3's is the fact you can program a trigger to fire when you press the button on the beacon. As an example, I have mine turn on the hallway light when I'm still in my car so that i am not walking into a dark house. I should mention I had originally automated this by using pibeacon/fingscan to set All-Home features to turn the light on automatically after dusk when someone came home. Unfortunately this only works if all the beacons are out of the house and one comes back. Too many times people were leaving their keys at home when they were catching a ride someplace. I suppose I could have used the Any-Home trigger to turn the light on but sometimes I like a bit more control by physically hitting the button on the fob.

Jeff

Posted on
Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:19 am
mundmc offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

polycron wrote:
I am currently using the XY2 and XY3 beacons. I had the same issue you had with the XY3's going into a sleep mode. After I associated them to my cell phone using their XY FindIt software the beacons started working full time and no longer went to sleep. I don't think I used the find-near capabilities but I can't promise that. I ended up deleting the app from my phone once I took control of each of the beacons through the software. I found the software on my android device was killing my battery.

What I like about the XY3's is the fact you can program a trigger to fire when you press the button on the beacon. As an example, I have mine turn on the hallway light when I'm still in my car so that i am not walking into a dark house. I should mention I had originally automated this by using pibeacon/fingscan to set All-Home features to turn the light on automatically after dusk when someone came home. Unfortunately this only works if all the beacons are out of the house and one comes back. Too many times people were leaving their keys at home when they were catching a ride someplace. I suppose I could have used the Any-Home trigger to turn the light on but sometimes I like a bit more control by physically hitting the button on the fob.

Jeff

That makes sense on the XY3's. I will look into the button-push functionality. Do you recall how the broadcast uuid/major/minor is different for the button press?


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Posted on
Fri Jan 06, 2017 11:04 am
polycron offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

I think the only thing that changed was the minor was increased by 1. I'll have to see if I can capture that information later.

Jeff

Posted on
Fri Jan 06, 2017 4:08 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

It's the mac number that is different in one digit for xy3 beep button


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Posted on
Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:01 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

see post http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewtopic.php?f=187&t=15360&start=30 fro the mac numbers for xy3 beacons and the beep function

Posted on
Fri Jan 06, 2017 9:41 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

As for the new Tile beacon: my new wallet beacon works fine.
Don't know why it does not work for you guys. Have not done anything special.

I have more beacons than I really need, so I hesitate to buy another new Tile beacon to test one more.

Karl

Posted on
Sat Jan 07, 2017 7:05 am
benip offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

I just added a new Tile Mate beacon to piBeacon. So long as the iPhone app is not running it is working well so far. Much better than the bulky jaalee I had on my key ring before.

Although, while testing it I've noticed that my UP to DOWN override timer of 10 seconds isn't working, I don't think? UP to DOWN & DOWN to EXPIRED both seem to take the previous option, which is currently 2mins.
Previously I had a 10 second DOWN and a 10 minute expired which worked well.

Posted on
Sat Jan 07, 2017 7:10 am
kw123 offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

The expiration time is in the plugin.
This is added to the time on the rpi
10 secs is meant for testing only. It should give many false positives for up to down.

But will test

Your comment on the tile that it only works when the iPhone tile app is down is interesting. That might be why mine is working - my iPhone tile is always off- and for some others not.


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Posted on
Sat Jan 07, 2017 8:28 am
kw123 offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

the newt TILES, why are they not working:

when the iPhone app is running it seems that the new tiles do not send broad casts anymore. The RPI program only picks up broad casts.

here the test:
1. switch off your tile app (or disable bluetooth on your phone) and the new tile should appear within seconds (~ 2)
2. wait 2 minutes
3. switch on the tile app on the phone and the new tiles should expire within the set expiration time
4. switch off the app and the tiles should appear again

Karl

Posted on
Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:13 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

What about the TrackR?


with the feature of device/state= "closest RPI" you essentially have the info that TRACKR uses.
Assign each RPi to a room and then closesRPI state shows you in which room the iBeacon is

makeup a a map of your home and the add one icon per room per beacon( icon = blank and green)
Then set each icon to blank as default
Set a trigger if "iBeacon-dev/state=closestRPI" changes: set old icon to blank and set new icon (of that iBeacon-RPI) to eg green. Then you have a map of where each iBeacon is
may be generate variables
beaconA_room1 set to 1 if beaconA is in room1
beaconA_room2 set to 1 if beaconA is in room2
...
icon =green if variable ==1, blank otherwise

Missing is the path between the rooms. Need to think about how to generate the data and import into eg plotD
we currently have x,y,z coordinates available, could do a quick 2 dim plot ..


Karl

ps This technology is ready for prime time. Was wondering when this would come out in a nice packaged wrapping..

Posted on
Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:37 pm
mundmc offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

I realized I never replied. The xy3's, when associated to an iphone, are working well. Battery needs to be replaces every 3-4 months. I never fiddled with my Tile's though given Tile requires you to replace them yearly, and given you have to do the setup again, this is more work than replacing a battery in an xy3.

Karl, you continue to rule.

Posted on
Fri Jul 07, 2017 7:05 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

You actually can replace the tile batteries. Some mechanical cutting and soldering required though.


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Posted on
Sun Jul 09, 2017 8:12 am
mundmc offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

kw123 wrote:
You actually can replace the tile batteries. Some mechanical cutting and soldering required though.


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I've seen the tutorials, I'll probably stick with xy3 :)


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Posted on
Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:25 am
johnpolasek offline
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Re: 2017 beacon thoughts

The Magic TIles from Office Depot are very easy to replace; good news/bad news... they have a twist off cover on the back that you use a coin to turn, making it easy to replace the battery when they start screaming at you about every 4 months or so. But they have room for that cover because they are about twice the size of the xys.

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