AltBeacon - Problems with Eddystone-URL transmitting and Chrome Physical Web

Question

I was trying to transmit Eddystone-URL using this code:

try
{
    byte[] urlBytes = UrlBeaconUrlCompressor.compress("http://google.com");
    Identifier encodedUrlIdentifier = Identifier.fromBytes(urlBytes, 0, urlBytes.length, false);
    ArrayList<Identifier> identifiers = new ArrayList<Identifier>();
    identifiers.add(encodedUrlIdentifier);
    Beacon beacon = new Beacon.Builder()
            .setIdentifiers(identifiers)
            .setManufacturer(0x0188)
            .setTxPower(-7)
            .build();
    BeaconParser beaconParser = new BeaconParser().setBeaconLayout(BeaconParser.EDDYSTONE_URL_LAYOUT);
    BeaconTransmitter beaconTransmitter = new BeaconTransmitter(getApplicationContext(), beaconParser);
    beaconTransmitter.setAdvertiseTxPowerLevel(AdvertiseSettings.ADVERTISE_TX_POWER_HIGH);
    beaconTransmitter.setAdvertiseMode(AdvertiseSettings.ADVERTISE_MODE_LOW_LATENCY);
    beaconTransmitter.startAdvertising(beacon, new AdvertiseCallback()
    {
        @Override
        public void onStartFailure(int errorCode)
        {
            Log.e(TAG, "Advertisement start failed with code: " + errorCode);
        }

        @Override
        public void onStartSuccess(AdvertiseSettings settingsInEffect)
        {
            Log.i(TAG, "Advertisement start succeeded.");
        }
    });
}
catch (MalformedURLException e)
{
    Log.d(TAG, "That URL cannot be parsed");
}

I am able to to see to transmitted beacon on my second device using this app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.uriio&hl=pl

But this beacon is not visible in Chrome Physical Web on my second device. When I've used BeaconToy app to transmit Eddystone-URL beacon my second device has found this beacon both in Chrome Physical Web and BeaconToy.

Do I have something in my transmitting code or is it a bug in altbeacon?

Answer 1

This is a newly identified bug in the Android Beacon Library 2.8.1. A fix has been proposed and a release is planned by the end of the week. See here for details:

https://github.com/AltBeacon/android-beacon-library/pull/401