How to trigger HTTP API by new estimote monitoring

BLE Beacons
1

Dear Community Experts,

I would like to trigger a URL initiating an activity on my home automation (Fibaro HC2) once my iPhone enters the iBeacon range. The http get command I want to trigger looks for instance like this http://login:pwd@IP/api/callAction?deviceID=12&name=pressButton&arg1=1

This is already it. As soon as a new beacon range is entered a different http command should be triggered. Each beacon having a own URL I would love to trigger using the new improved Estimote monitroring.

Any help or recommendations how I can do this would be great.
I highly appreciate your support.

Cheers,
Alzi

2

Are you a developer? If yes, the easiest way to get started would be to download the Estimote Monitoring template from Estimote Cloud:

https://cloud.estimote.com/#/apps/add/monitoring-notification

By default, this app shows a notification when entering range of a beacon, but you should be able to easily modify it to send the HTTP request you want (:

3

Hi Piotr,

Thank you for the link and the quick replay.

I used the template and created a new app on my Mac.
Trying to run it in Xcode 8 I get the error message: Build Failed (AppDelegate.m)

“TODO: Make sure Estimote Location packet is enabled using Estimote iOS app:”
The mentioned link https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/estimote/id686915066 does not work.

So what should I do next?

Cheers

4

We’ll fix the link, thanks for the heads up (: Here’s the correct one:

Just do what the TODO says, make sure that the Location packet is enabled. You can do that by opening the app, going to Devices, finding your beacon on the Radar/List and tapping on it, then going to Packets and Estimote Location.

Once you enabled the packet, simply remove the TODO line (:

5

Thank you for the advice.
Removing the lines was the trick :smile:

Two more questions:

1: What do I need to change to make the monitoring as well possible without the application running? It works great if the app is on. As soon as I close the app, the notification will stop when entering the iBeacon range. Please advise what to change so it works as well w/o the app running.

2: The notification works great. Just the range is extremely limited. My iBacons are set on full strength. And with other applications such as Beecon the notifications starts already 20 to 30 meters away. With the notifications app it only works in 2 Meter distance. Already 3 Meters with direct view to the iBeacon triggers the “good by” notification. How can I increase the sensitivity to be comparable to the other apps?

6

  1. Go to your project settings, “Capabilities” tab, and enable the “Uses Bluetooth LE accessories” background mode. Also, if you want to use Estimote Monitoring in the background, make sure you’re on the 4.11.2 iOS SDK, we made some improvements to it there (:

  2. Use this method of the ESTMonitoringManager:

http://estimote.github.io/iOS-SDK/Classes/ESTMonitoringManager.html#//api/name/startMonitoringForIdentifier:inProximity:

… and pass it a ESTMonitoringProximityFar proximity parameter. That should trigger the events around 15 meters. We hear you about wanting to trigger events even further—we wanted to start in close proximity, b/c it works more reliably there, and most use cases use that. But once we nail that down, we’ll start looking into more range options (: