Reading more than one UUID?!

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How many UUIDs are there on a device?

In this StackOverflow post, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21163290/ios-ibeacon-how-to-get-all-of-proximityuuid-programmatically ,three are named: Service UUID, Proximity UUID, and Device UUID.

I launched LightBlue on my iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, and my iPhone 6. Each device gave me a different UUID for the estimote. On top of that, my android device is picking up something different, and it looks more like a MAC address , something like “5F:3C:FF:0A…”

I am pretty confused now and nervous. Does this mean I’m going to have to write code which associates several UUIDs with one item in my DB?

Update

The UUID in advertisement data is the same on all iPhones! What are all the available UUIDS? Why and how do they change depending on the device?

2

Hi there,

A beacon could be identified with its Bluetooth UUID, iBeacon UUID (this one is the proximity UUID you’ve mentioned), or the MAC address. Don’t worry though, there is absolutely no reason for you to care about all of those and they will have no impact on your beacon-enabled app.

If you’re building an app based on iBeacon protocol, and if you’re using Estimote Beacons it probably means that you are, then you should only care about the iBeacon ID: proximity UUID + Major + Minor. These are the values (you could also say they’re three segments of a single value) that iBeacon apps are looking for when they’re detecting beacons.

To check your beacon’s UUID, Major, Minor you should use the Estimote app (or the dedicated app of the vendor whose beacons you’re using), because it will show the iBeacon ID. Bluetooth scanners might show you the device UUID instead of proximity UUID if they’re not using the Core Location framework.

I suggest reading those two articles from our Community Portal to understand better how beacon IDs work:

Cheers.

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Just to add to what Wojtek said: iOS hides all the iBeacon packets from the Bluetooth scanners (like LightBlue), so you won’t be able to discover the iBeacon UUID (AKA the proximity UUID) with their help. The only thing you see in LightBlue is another, “maintenance” packet broadcasted by Estimote Beacons, which we use so that an iPhone can connect to it.

If you want to discovery the iBeacon UUID of Estimote Beacons, the best way to go about it is using our Estimote iOS app.