Is anybody else having issues detecting a beacon running iOS 7.1 from an 5s?
I can detect the beacon on my Android devices but not on my iPhone 5S -- and I thought Apple products just work:-)
Hi guys,
It's a known iOS 7.1 issue affecting most Bluetooth devices. It's already fixed in iOS 7.1.2.
Cheers.
Having an issue with 7.1 with iPad mini - works sometimes and if not I need to hard reset the iPad.
Hey guys ! i also got the same issue in "iPhone4s" as mentioned above for iPhone5s . it was feeling like none of beacon service is working despite of beaing bluetooth service on and location service on.
i just rebooted it, and it began to work . but what is this issue i still could not figure it out . if this happens with end user how he will get to know that he needs to reboot his device?
i have encountered one more issue today , issue is - i have used startRangingBeaconsInRegion in both places didDetermineState and didEnterRegion and when i leave current viewController and navigate to new one i stop services by calling stopRangingBeaconsInRegion and stopMonitoringForRegion , what i noticed in my console it is still detecting beacons as defined in previous viewController . what could be reason ..?
iPhone 5S still broken for advertising as of 7.1.1. There is a thread on Apple's dev forums about this, but no Apple acknowledgement that we know of.
This is really serious. We can't release with this bug. Is it just affecting the estimote beacons or beacons from other manufacturers too?
Hi Will Price, Can you post a link to the thread on apple forum discussing this issue?
Hi Khurram,
Just to be clear - it's not a bug affecting Beacons themselves, but iOS Bluetooth Stack. So until Apple fixes this, any Bluetooth Smart connectivity with iOS 7.1 might be prone to problems.
Cheers.
The Apple Dev thread is here:
https://devforums.apple.com/thread/223006?tstart=0
(I think that link requires a Dev membership of course.)
Will, I think this is an issue with Estimote beacons only. I tried with Gimbal beacons from Qualcomm and they continue to work fine even when estimotes don't. I think you need to fix it and update the firmware.
Meanwhile we will look for another vendor as this is obviously not going to work for us. Thank you.
This is definitely not Estimote specific. This is an iOS bug specifically affecting the iPhone 5S and can be easily reproduced with any of Apple's iBeacon sample apps with no Estimote involved.
Hi there,
As Will explained, it's not Estimote-specific bug, as it's on Apple's side. However, it's not limited to iPhone 5S, unfortunately. It might occur on all iOS 7.1 devices.
Cheers.
Will and Wojtek,
Thank you for your responses. I trust what you are saying but that is just not what I am seeing.
Here's my environment -
I am on iPhone 5 with 7.1.1 iOS. This was the exact same issue with iOS 7.1 too. Also I have had 3 different friends with iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 try it and they all run into this issue.
Here's what I see -
Estimote app on iPhone works fine for sometime and correctly detects the estimotes. Then suddenly it stops working i.e. it stops detecting the estimotes. I literally have my iPhone in one hand and the estimotes right next to it so it is not the range issue. If at this time, I launch the Estimote app on my Android phone, that works fine and detects the estimotes. If I restart my iPhone and then try again, it starts working again.
At the time when Estimote app on iPhone stops detecting the estimotes, if I launch the Gimbal app, it has no problem at all detecting the Gimbal beacons. This is what I was saying. If this was an iPhone or iOS issue, how come the Gimbal app never has problem detecting the Gimbals while the Estimote app stops detecting them.
There might be an issue with iOS too but the issue I am running into is only happening on Estimotes and Gimbal beacons work perfectly fine. I should be getting my Konkakt beacons in a few days and will try those too.
I hope I explained the issue. You'll be well advised to debug deeper and fix this bug instead of blaming iOS. This has made us switch to Gimbal even though we love Estimote design and simplicity. You risk losing your customers unless you fix this issues asap!
Could you please check if you can detect Estimote Beacons with BLExplr app?
Cheers.
Yes. BLE Explr app can correctly detect Estimote beacons even when Estimote app is not able to. It's just the Estimote app and the app we built using the Estimote iOS SDK that stops working.
Well, that explain a lot. The iOS bug affects a specific part of the Bluetooth stack. Namely: the CoreLocation framework, which is used by our software. BLExplr, however (and, from what you're writing, I suspect that Gimbal as well), is based on CoreBluetooth, which remain unaffected by the iOS 7.1 issue.
I hope it makes the case a bit clearer.
Cheers.
Thanks Wojtek. Unfortunately, our users don't care which framework you use or whether the bug is in iOS or in Estimote code. We simply cannot afford to even mention the possibility that users have to restart their iPhones. think about it, would you ever even think about doing that.
So that leaves us with no choice but to find an alternate beacon. This is a life threatening issue for Estimote Inc that you guys have to take very seriously even if it means rewriting the SDK to not use the CoreLocation framework. think about it, even if Apple fixes this bug and issues a patch, it would take Apple several months to do that as they just issued 7.1.1 very recently. After they issye it, it would take another several months for users to adopt it. We are easily looking at at least 1-1.5years when majority of the iOS users will have this working fine with Estimotes. That gives your competitors a HUGE advantage and present a threat to Estimote Inc that can destroy the company.
My advice - do whatever you can and as fast as you can to fix this in your code.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Khurram, we take it very seriously. However, keep in mind that CoreBluetooth does not give you full funcionality required for iBeacons, therefore if you're planning a service based on them, you'll most likely need CoreLocation anyway, even if the vendor's software allows for detection with CoreBluetooth.
Therefore, all Beacon vendors building for iOS are affected by this issue in more or less the same way and it's also in Apple's best interest to take care of it. I assure you that you won't have to wait a year for Apple to issue a fix for that.
Cheers.
Thanks Wojtek. for our use case, we simply need detection for now so we are good with CoreBluetooth only.
Are you suggesting that the whole iBeacon industry is standstill till Apple fixes the bug? Also if Apple was to fix it quickly, they would have done that in 7.1.1 but they didn't. My point is that even if they do right away, it will take several months before the users upgrade their iPhones. Going by what you are saying, all the iBeacon vendors who are using CoreLocation are basically dead in the water till then.
I wonder why no one else is complaining?