What's all this then?

A ruby gem that provides RadBeacon scanning and configuring capabilities on a linux machine. Currently the only supported beacon type is RadBeacon USB.

Scanning

The Radbeacon::Scanner class has a scan method that returns an array of configurable RadBeacons (in the form of Radbeacon::Usb objects). The duration of a scan (default = 5 seconds) is an attribute that can be set during initialization. 

scanner = Radbeacon::Scanner.new(10)
radbeacons = scanner.scan

There is also a fetch method that returns a Radbeacon::Usb object for a given MAC address.

radbeacon = scanner.fetch("11:22:33:44:55:66")

Scan Options

An (optional) options hash is available as an attribute on the Scanner class. Below are the following options that can be used:

  • :filter_mac - Specify an array of MAC addresses that the scanner will filter for when doing a scan
  options[:filter_mac] = ["11:22:33:44:55:66", "55:66:77:88:99:00"]
  • :enable_hcitool_duration - Use the custom hcitool-duration binary that adds a duration option to the hcitool lescan command. To use this you must copy the new hcitool binary over the standard one (located at /usr/bin/hcitool on the ZBOX for example).
  options[:enable_hcitool_duration] = true

Configuring

All identifiers and other parameters are attributes on the Radbeacon::Usb class:

  • dev_name
  • uuid
  • major
  • minor
  • power
  • tx_power
  • adv_rate
  • beacon_type

To make a config change, simply assign one of these attributes to the desired value and call the save() method with the beacon's PIN (as a string).

radbeacon.save(pin)

For example:

radbeacon.dev_name = "Test Beacon"
radbeacon.uuid = "2F234454-CF6D-4A0F-ADF2-F4911BA9ABCD"
radbeacon.major = 1
radbeacon.minor = 1
radbeacon.power = -66
radbeacon.tx_power = 3
radbeacon.adv_rate = 10
radbeacon.beacon_type = "dual"
radbeacon.save('0000')

Other Actions

All other RadBeacon actions are available as well

Change PIN
radbeacon.change_pin(new_pin, old_pin)
Factory Reset
radbeacon.factory_reset(pin)
Boot to DFU
radbeacon.boot_to_dfu(pin)
Lock
radbeacon.lock(pin)

Dependencies

BlueZ (Linux Bluetooth stack) is required to scan for and communicate with RadBeacons via Bluetooth. Specifically, the hcitool and gatttool commands.