GPIO to read I2C

Hi there,

I am working on a project were there is a need to feed sensor data to beacon; the sensor is using I2C (SDA/SCL).
I can feed this to RPi easily, the question is: does the GPIOs in Estimote beacon accept the I2C?
Most probably … not.
If so, what will be the alternative solution(s)? Maybe an add-on circuit or whatever.

Regards

You can use UART to control what the beacon advertises => so, you could make your Raspberry Pi take the data from the sensor, and steer the beacon to advertise the most recent reading, and keep updating the advertisements in real time.

Here’s a little bundle that should get you started:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8001185/Estimote/UART%20Tester’s%20Package.zip

It comes with:

  • a PDF which describes our UART protocol (i.e., what data/commands to send via UART to control the beacon)
  • an example Arduino app that makes the beacon advertise “Esti_A”, then after 2 seconds changes it to “Esti_B”, and so on
  • an example iOS app which you can use to switch the GPIO ports in your beacon to the UART mode

Any questions or problems, post here and we’ll be happy to help (:

(Here’s a little video from a workshop where we were making the beacon advertise whether a button connected to an Arduino was pressed or not: https://twitter.com/heypiotr/status/789870455532453888.)