Beacon Launcher is an OS X app that allows you to easily run scripts when your Mac is near a beacon. Just add in the beacon identifiers, tell it what apps or scripts to run when entering or exiting a beacon, and BAM!, you are done. Beacon Launcher is free, but you can support it…
Tag: ibeacon
Beacon Scan
Beacon Scan is an OS X app to find any iBeacons or Physical Web beacons. It requires a Mac with Bluetooth LE and 10.10 (Yosemite). Just launch it, and it will start showing nearby beacons. You can copy the UUID or other data for easy pasting into apps. Download it here. We’ll have a fancy…
Trusted Beacon
One of the common requests for our Bleu Station beacons is how to prevent hijacking, or “spoofing”, of the beacon signals. Since the iBeacon spec (and for that matter, Physical Web Beacons) do not provide a way to prevent someone else setting up a beacon in a different location that broadcasts the exact same identifiers,…
10 Things You Need to Know About Large-Scale iBeacon Deployments
It’s been less than two years since Apple announced iBeacons, but the landscape for retail and other large beacon venues is starting to take shape. Twocanoes Labs has been deploying beacons for the enterprise sector for well over a year and we’ve learned a great deal about it from our customers. We have tens of…
iBeacon Statusboard
Setting up a statusboard to automatically show when people enter or exit a building or room is a great small project and is easy to do with our beacons, a Raspberry Pi, and Geohopper. It would be great for an In/Out board, Meeting or Event Attendance, Time Cards, Personnel Availability, or other ways you can…
Turn off iPhone Camera With iBeacons In many environments it is important to turn off the camera on an iPhone when entering into a facility. Using Bleu Station Beacons, you can automatically disable a camera when in range of a beacon, and re-enable the camera once you are out of range of the beacon. You…
Disable Texting while driving With iBeacons Have you ever wanted to remove the temptation to text while driving? Using a Bleu Station Beacon in your car, you can disable the Message app on iOS whenever you are nearby the beacon, preventing you from sending or receiving texts. When you get out of the car, Messages…
Beacon Redundancy
If your beacon solution depends on your beacons being up and running all the time, consider deploying multiple beacons in a single area. When two beacons have the exact same identifiers, they don’t conflict, but rather extend the area covered by both beacons. For example, if it is important to have a user be notified…
Powering Beacons
Since beacons use Bluetooth Low Energy, most people think that a beacon can run on any battery for an indefinite amount of time. While Bluetooth Low Energy was designed for long life on small batteries, this is not true for every Bluetooth Low Energy device. Some Bluetooth Low Energy devices may not broadcast at all,…
Positioning Beacons
A beacon is a small device that broadcasts identifiers over Bluetooth. It may seem very simple to just stick a beacon wherever is the most convenient, it is important to consider the best location when installing a beacon. First, beacons broadcast using radio waves, and are affected by objects that are between the user’s phone…