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ibeacon

iBeacon Region monitoring too aggressive

We are using IOS's iBeacon region monitoring to scan beacons. What is the recommended way(if possible) to control the size of individual region? We are placing the beacons too close to each others and the regions are overlapping. We would need regions to be smaller, even gaps exist between regions would be fine.

Thanks,

IOX

Solution

  • Both the regions you define and the identifiers you choose for your beacons should be driven by your use cases. Ask yourself these two questions:

    1. In what cases is it important for my iOS app to get woken up in the background by detecting a group of beacons?

    2. In what cases is it important for my iOS app to get woken up in the background by no longer detecting a group of beacons?

    For each use case defined by 1 and 2 above, you need to define a beacon region (a combination of Proximity UUID and major fields) to be registered with by your app with iOS.

    You should refine this list by taking into account two rules:

    1. You can only register a maximum of 20 regions per app.

    2. As you have seen, if the transmission range of multiple beacons overlap, and they are in the same defined region, you won't get an exit/entry event as you move from one beacon to the next. There's nothing wrong with this so long as it meets your use cases.

    If it is important to your use cases to get a new entry/exit event as you move from one beacon to the next, you need to do one or more of the following:

    1. Redefine your regions.

    2. Configure your beacons' transmitter power to be lower so you get an exit event and then an entry event.

    3. Move your beacons further apart so you get an exit event and then an entry event.

    Designing a good region and identifier scheme is as much of an art as it is a science. Again, the most important best practice is to let your use cases drive your identifiers and regions, and not an organizational hierarchy or some other abstract scheme.