Where to get UUIDs for deployed iBeacon devices?

Question

If I understand correctly, companies like McDonalds and Apple have or will deploy large numbers of iBeacon BLE devices at their stores, each presumably having a unique UUID so that triangulation is possible within the store. Is there now, or will there be, a central place where UUIDs for various stores are going to be made available for bulk download for people who want to use them in apps?

Answer 1

Actually, the range of UUIDs for a given organisation will be quite small - 1 or maybe 2. It is the 16 bit minor and major values that are associated with a given UUID that identify a location.

An app can register its interest in a limited number of UUIDs (the total number of UUIDs that can be registered across all apps is also limited, so it is best for an organisation to use as few UUIDs as possible)

Once it has registered interest in a UUID, the app will be notified when the device comes into range of one. The app can then display an alert to the user prompting them to enter the app. If they do, then the app can retrieve the major and minor numbers from the beacon. The app can cross reference this information against a database, possibly via a web service, to determine its location. For example Major=12 might mean Sydney Apple store, minor=4 might mean the Genius bar.

If the device is in range of several iBeacons then it can use signal strength to estimate a range and therefore a location, but it isn't really triangulation in the true sense.

As to whether companies will release details of there UUIDs, major and minor values is unknown and will certainly vary from organisation to organisation - the data is being transmitted in the open so it is possible that 3rd parties may gather this information and make it available.

Answer 2

Locate for iBeacon (iOS) and iBeacon Locate (Android) can optionally collect iBeacon data and upload it to WikiBeacon.org, a public directory of iBeacon Locations. Data collection has been going on for a few months, but the directory has not yet been launched. I will update this answer when in is available.

If you know of the locations of iBeacons that you would like to be included in this directory, you can enable data collection in these apps, then use them to scan for them.

Data of this kind relies on reports from individual app users, so it is not comprehensive. Many organizations deploying iBeacons have no incentive to publish their locations because of the expense involved with deploying and maintaining them, so they probably will never reveal this info.

Full disclosure: I am Chief Engineer for Radius Networks.

Answer 3

The fact you don't know iBeacon identifiers (mainly UUID) for already deployed beacons can be indeed problematic. Basically, it does not allow you to leverage existing infrastructure for your applications and forces everyone to build their own infrastructure (= duplicate iBeacons), which is inefficient both financially and "morally".

We have started an effort called OpenUUID to help fix this issue:

OpenUUID

Basically, OpenUUID is a free to use registry of unique proximity UUIDs for your iBeacon applications.

Help us clean the iBeacon environment by using it to generate your proximity UUIDs and by spreading the word about this activity, so that McDonalds or Apple use the OpenUUID service for their iBeacon deployments... ;-)