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I want to know the position of the iBeacons when the user its near by. i am using the estimote device.

i am able to get the distance within the iBeacons. but How to calculate the position. Please check the below image.

enter image description here

This is the screenshot from the estimote application.

Note : i have put my iBeacon device to the estiomote application. they detect the movement of the iBeacons. so how they do it?

Sunny Shah
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  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20983734/tools-to-determine-exact-location-when-using-ibeacons – iPatel Jun 06 '14 at 09:56
  • @iPatel: your link is about how to determinate the device location using surrounding beacons, not how to determinate the position of a beacon. – Jerome Diaz Jun 06 '14 at 09:59
  • Your question and comment responses to all the answers seems to indicate that you are mistakenly believing these beacons have an internal capability which they simply do not. – Chris Stratton Jun 06 '14 at 13:35

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This is Wojtek Borowicz, I'm a community evangelist at Estimote.

The beacons do not broadcast their position with X and Y values. They only transmit their ID, sensor data, and information about signal power, based on which the proximity is calculated. The only way to include long/lat and associate it with beacons in your app is to either hardocde their location into the app or fetch it from a database in the cloud.

The radar sceen in the Estimote mobile app doesn't show the location of the beacon. The app does not determine the direction from which the signal is coming, only the proximity. The visual representation is simply an UI thing, to help visualize the idea behind this technology.

Cheers.

Wojtek Borowicz
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Knowing the position of beacons, one and only one solution => having the position of each beacon in a database and querying it...

Beacons are dumb, they only know who they are, never where they are.


Update

Blockquote Note : i have put my iBeacon device to the estiomote application. they detect the movement of the iBeacons. so how they do it?

Estimote beacons have accelerometer and temperature sensose

http://blog.estimote.com/post/81380655308/estimote-sdk-updated-with-accelerometer-and-temperature

Jerome Diaz
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  • +1 for the additional information. but i think there is something that can detect location. because accelerometer will be in picture when you move iBeacon device. but if u dont move(very first time) iBeacons still he knows the location. – Sunny Shah Jun 06 '14 at 10:50
  • @SunnyShah - no, they do not. However, if you record their locations in an external database, then you can look their identifiers up in that to determine the location of any you hear. – Chris Stratton Jun 06 '14 at 13:30
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You can't. That was never a design goal of iBeacon. You know that the device is near the beacon, that's all you should need to know. To get your location, use CLLocation.

gnasher729
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iBeacons don't work that way - you can get an estimated distance, but the signal is non-directional, so there is no way of knowing which direction the iBeacon is in.

You can maintain a database of the latitude and longitude where each iBeacon is installed (using the major/minor to identify the beacon in your database) but that won't tell you precisely where the phone is in relation to the beacon

Paulw11
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  • Hey have you seen the estimote app. they detect the movement of estimote? – Sunny Shah Jun 06 '14 at 10:17
  • I haven't seen that app. Estimote could have built an accelerometer into their beacon. This could report the movement of the beacon using inertial measurements but is not part of the iBeacon standard – Paulw11 Jun 06 '14 at 10:21
  • accelerometer will be in picture when you move iBeacon device. but if iBeacons at steady position he still reconige. i think there something additional with estimote device – Sunny Shah Jun 06 '14 at 10:53
  • Either the phone is moving or the beacon is moving. Movement will change the received signal strength which allows an estimate of distance but not direction – Paulw11 Jun 06 '14 at 11:17
  • moving does not play a role here. if we keep both phone and beacon static position it still detect a position – Sunny Shah Jun 06 '14 at 11:24
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    It can't detect the position, just a position based on the estimated distance – Paulw11 Jun 06 '14 at 12:21
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    Don't be confused by the "radar" like display in the estimote app. The beacons always appear in the same 3 locations on the screen depending on distance – Paulw11 Jun 06 '14 at 12:29