TrackR

Hello,

I have a bunch of TrackR StickR BLE devices and so far i have no idea what device is which.
I have figured out my Parrot Flower Power devices are obvious as they all start A0:14:3D:x:x:x but trying to figure out what these TrackR devices are does not seem to be as simple.

If i use an app like BLE Scanner or eBeacon i can find the devices as they all have the name "tkr" but the ID displayed doe not match anything created in Indigo from piBeacon.

Is there a way to display the name in piBeacon like these apps do? (i dont know if the local name is broadcasted, obtained from a connect or some other method)
If not, is there a good method for figuring out which device is which or an iPhone app or something that is able to determine the MAC address of the device like piBeacon is able to?
Short of taking a laptop into the nearest field in hopes that there are no other BLE devices about or a faraday cage, is there any way to determine which device is which?

I have for some reason a shed load of devices being picked up by piBeacon, which may be normal but i live in a remote part of a small town so its a bit surprising (300 MAC addresses in 2 days) and hence my isolation issues.

Im hoping these TrackR devices are not doing something weird but who knows. I cant find any documentation on them to this level other than their App docs.

They all state TX Power Level: 4 in the apps i have used if that eludes to a clue as to if they are rebranded devices but doubt it.

Currently using 3 pi3's to get to grips with this

I just found an option in eBeacon called "Not Jaalee" to pair and connect to one of my devices and it displays back:

peripheral: tkr
Connectable: True
Local Name: tkr
ID: 80932515-3627-49D6-1F3A-6FC9FE0C844A
Tx Power: UUID 0x1804 - Characteristic - 0x2A07 (Decimal Value: 4 Hex: 0x04)
Immediate Alert: UUID 0x1802 - Characteristic - 0x2A06 (Hex: 0x00)
Link Loss: UUID 0x1803 - Characteristic - 0x2A06 (Decimal Value: 0 Hex: 0x04)
Battery Level: UUID 0x180F - Characteristic - 0x2A19 (Text Value: d Decimal Value: 100 Hex: 0x64)
Device Information: UUID: 0x180A - Characteristic - 0x2A29 (Text Value: PH Decimal Value: 20552 Hex: 0x5048) + a few more Characteristics found (can post if relevant)
0xDCABA0EE-4E1A47A4-90452... : UUID 0xDCABA0EE-4E1A47A4-90452...

Will keep scratching the noodle to see if i can find out what the heck is what but any help would be appreciated. I have 10 of these so would love to be able to use these in piBeacon for cost reasons (less i spend on beacons the more i can spend on pi3's )

What I did with the three FIndIt XYs that I got in was to power them up one at a time and name them as they appeared in the list. If you've got a whole herd already talking to the raspberrys, you can take them all out of range till they expire and then bring them back one at a time.

The issue is i have no idea where the herd is coming from. I have 10 TrackR's and 9 Flower Power plant monitors plus a few devices that may use bluetooth, but the volume that is appearing is way beyond what i believe is in the near vicinity. Its determining what is mine and what is other, then figuring out which are the TrackR devices.

For example:

I press the button on the TrackR to send instant response. 4 devices show up in my log at once and in indigo, that is the kind of volume im having issues with so no idea how to isolate which is which

If i could see the local name of the device, it would be obvious, but short of that...

I will try middle of the night, maybe less cars/phones etc. traveling by (not that there are many going past). I will still be guessing though as there seems to be no pattern at this point. I hope to find one though, either UUID or MAC.

OK so I have figured out some of them

There seems to be no real pattern MAC or UUID. Figured it out by using another Pi and running a hcitool lescan to get the local name and the MAC. From that i could figure out which was which by removing the batteries and bring them back on one by one.

As a feature request, could the local name be logged somewhere alongside the MAC address?

So for TrackR SrickR devices they show up as follows:

1) MAC DE:FF:0A:96:AB:71 - UUID 0106110623d1bcea5f782315deef12-4656-5376
2) MAC F0:4A:37:36:C2:9C - UUID 02020106020a0403033e0f09ff00009c-49718-14154
3) MAC D9:C9:77:D6:DE:E2 - UUID 0105020a0405033e0f021809ff0000e2-57046-30665
4) MAC E9:CE:E0:9B:1F:31 - UUID 0105020a0405033e0f021809ff000031-8091-57550

So you can see the UUID has no real pattern and the MAC accdress is seems random (last 2 UUID's are similar but not quite)

Now to start playing with this properly now i have some identified devices of use!

The number off devices can be a problem. And yes switching then on/off is the only way to really id them currently. You could also wrap them into aluminum foil and should see a weakened signal
You could increase frequency of transmission and switch "fast down" on to see quickly when they are off.
A pure ibeacon does not transmit anything besides mac uuid major minor.
There might be lists of uuid to vendor but have not found them.

But the idea to add some more info if available is interesting.. will look at it when I am home

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Also if your junk beacons just show up once and disappear you could exclude their family uuid or switch off new beacons all together.
I stopped new beacons after I had collected 4000+ as I have just my beacons and tracking cars and folks waking by was not that interesting any more.


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One other way is to put the ibeacons next to an rpi then then move them and then back again and check the signal strength.


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OK so I have figured out some of them

There seems to be no real pattern MAC or UUID. Figured it out by using another Pi and running a hcitool lescan to get the local name and the MAC. From that i could figure out which was which by removing the batteries and bring them back on one by one.

As a feature request, could the local name be logged somewhere alongside the MAC address?

So for TrackR SrickR devices they show up as follows:

1) MAC DE:FF:0A:96:AB:71 - UUID 0106110623d1bcea5f782315deef12-4656-5376
2) MAC F0:4A:37:36:C2:9C - UUID 02020106020a0403033e0f09ff00009c-49718-14154
3) MAC D9:C9:77:D6:DE:E2 - UUID 0105020a0405033e0f021809ff0000e2-57046-30665
4) MAC E9:CE:E0:9B:1F:31 - UUID 0105020a0405033e0f021809ff000031-8091-57550

So you can see the UUID has no real pattern and the MAC accdress is seems random (last 2 UUID's are similar but not quite)

Now to start playing with this properly now i have some identified devices of use!

Interesting. The three Findits I bought all showed up with random (but fixed) MACs and UUIDs of the form

07775dd0111b11e491910800200c9a66-9xxx-yyyyy with no discernible pattern to the xs and ys. Whether that would remain constant if I ever need to buy more is an open question that perhaps other FIndit owners could confirm or refute, but it made them trivial to assign, since I only get two or three "junk" beacons per day showing up on my system.

all mac# must be unique between all devices worldwide. Like with Ethernet mac #.

You can define the uuid as findit then it will show in the notes field as
Findit-major-minor


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