Does Estimote UWB work when app is closed or in background?

UWB Beacons
1

Hello,

we are planning to use Estimote UWB beacon for Proximity basically we want to grant user some access when a user enters a region and we also need user precise distance and direction from the beacon but the most important thing for us is that all of this process should work even when app is closed, we need to integrate SDKs in both Android and iOS apps.

Thanks.

2

Muhammad,

it is possible for Estimote UWB Beacons to range with phone in the background.
Please this session from WWDC: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/10008/

All you need is our UWB Beacons and the latest iOS SDK from us. Your app has to setup some characteristics, so both UWB and phone sort of “pair” and then both devices will range in the background.

Please note there are some limitations to it and not all the use-cases are possible.

When it comes to Android, as of today (October 2023) background ranging via UWB is not supported by Google yet, but they are working on it.

3

can please share information for this i mean what do i need to config in the app to make it work from background currently it only works in foreground, even though i have added all background related permissions in info.plist.
do we need to update UWB beacons firmware?
Just for reference we bought our beacon around 2 months ago.

i asked this question at your contact and sales team over mail but i haven’t received any response.

Thanks.

4

@jimiasty we have the same issue. Constructing NINearbyAccessoryConfiguration just with the config data argument works fine (on iOS only - on Android we are lacking any instructions how to implement the SDK or much better yet create a solution with Jetpack directly since we already have a BLE manager handling connections to other products we’ve implemented), but for iOS our use case is background UWB ranging. As soon as I add the bluetoothPeerIdentifier argument, the session invalidates which I think must be due to not having the latest firmware version.

I have already found the BLE peripheral’s DFU characteristic, but we’d need the latest firmware (and if possible some minimal instructions) please so we can move forward. Unfortunately, no one seems to respond to the emails my colleague sends rather frequently.

5

Hi @d4l @jimiasty, could you please share more info and if possible a sample code for the NINearbyAccessoryConfiguration init? We are also trying to range in background but no luck yet. Thanks