Hello Community,
Here’s a tutorial how to create a simple beacon app which connects to your beacon. I’m not an iOS developer and even I could describe myself as an Obj-C noob. But I’ve managed to finish it. If I can do that, you also can. Just follow these steps:
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Make sure you’re a part of Apple’s iOS Developer Program, without it you won’t be able to build the app on you iOS mobile device.
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Create a Mobile App in the Estimote Cloud to get you App ID and App Token.
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Download Estimote SDK from Github.
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Open Xcode and create new project. In templates choose iOS Application and Single View Application. Click on the Next button and name your app. After that select a directory in which you want to save your project and press ‘Create’.
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We need to add the SDK framework. Open zip with our EstimoteSDK, go to EstimoteSDK folder and drag&drop ‘EstimoteSDK.framework’ file below your app’s files. Here’s where the coding begins!
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Go to AppDelegate.m file and import EstimoteSDK. Just below
"AppDelegate.h"insert:#import <EstimoteSDK/EstimoteSDK.h> -
Between the
@interfaceand@endsection insert our global property@property (nonatomic, strong) ESTBeaconConnection *beaconConnection; -
Below
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
Insert [ESTCloudManager setupAppID:@"x" andAppToken:@"y"]; code, where x and y are your app’s credentials from the Estimote Cloud. Thanks to that the app will be able to check if the beacon is yours.
9. After that lets create a beaconConnection object with:
self.beaconConnection = [[ESTBeaconConnection alloc] initWithProximityUUID:ESTIMOTE_PROXIMITY_UUID major:57459 minor:47724 delegate:self startImmediately:YES];
where you give UUID/major/minor details or
self.beaconConnection = [[ESTBeaconConnection alloc]initWithMacAddress:@"mac" delegate:self startImmediately:YES]
where you declare a beacon with its MAC address (all lowercase and with no colons e.g. “ec4510be5562”).
As the code executes, it starts of connection immediately. What does delegate:self mean? Basically we tell the app to send all messages to us.
10.Congratulations, you’ve just started connection. Now we need to make sure it followed through. Below the first } implement this:
- (void)beaconConnection:(ESTBeaconConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error {
NSLog(@"Ups, something went wrong. Error: %@", error);
}
This method will inform us when the connection fails and will tell us what happened.
11.More interesting part starts when we succeed:
- (void)beaconConnectionDidSucceed:(ESTBeaconConnection *)connection {
NSLog(@"Connection succeed");
}
12.Yuhooo!! Now we can do tons of cool things (insert the code below our NSLog message).
To get the battery level:
NSNumber *batteryLevel = [self.beaconConnection batteryLevel];
NSLog(@"Battery level in this beacon %@", batteryLevel);
To read the temperature:
[self.beaconConnection readTemperatureWithCompletion:^(NSNumber* value, NSError *error) {
if (!error)
{
NSLog(@"Temperature in the room: %@", value);
}
}];
Or even to change the advertising interval:
[self.beaconConnection writeAdvInterval:100 completion:^(unsigned short value, NSError *error) {
if (!error) {
NSLog(@"Changed! Current advertising interval: %d", value);
} else {
NSLog(@"Error: %@", error);
}
}];
13.Don’t forget to add [self.beaconConnection disconnect]; to disconnect from the beacon.
14. Connect your mobile device with a cable and build your app with ⌘B or with a play icon in the top of the Xcode Toolbar.
And we’ve finished. You’ve just created an app that allows you to connect to a beacon and read/write some basic values. Congratulations!