Here are a couple of free apps available on the internet for playing around with your beacon. We have no relationship with these apps, so we can’t guarantee how well they work (and we can’t offer any support for them), but we have tested each and confirmed that they work well.
(If you know of any good free apps not listed here, send me a link via the contact page so I can share it with others. Thanks!)
Android compatible apps:
Automate
Official Description: “The free Android™ application Automate lets you automate various tasks on your smartphone or tablet. Create your automations using flowcharts, make your device automatically change settings like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, or perform actions like sending SMS, e-mail, based on your location, time of day, or any other “event trigger”. You can automate almost everything on your device, Automate even support plug-ins made for Tasker and Locale.”
This app is one of the best that I have found. It even allows you to add a signal strength (RSSI) threshold, rather than just a simple “in range” or “out of range” binary reaction. Still, it’s not quite perfect since they don’t give you access to adjust the scan interval and scan window, so the fastest “reaction” you can get is 11 seconds. Hopefully they will improve this at some time.
FYI, I made a sample “flow” (i.e. macro) to show how this app works with beacons. Take a look and download my sample here.
Click Here to download the app
Beacon Locator
Official Description: “The application can scan, locate and track bluetooth LE beacons (Eddystone, iBeacons or AltBeacons) allows you to define actions that will be triggered when a specified event occurs.
These events are supported:
• Beacon enters a region (beacon in range)
• Beacon leaves the region (beacon is out of range)
• Beacon is near you
For each event you can define unlimited number of actions :
• Start an application
• Open url
• Get current location
• Broadcast intent action
• Set Normal / Silent mode
• Execute tasker action (http://tasker.dinglisch.net) for unlimited action possibilities”
Be sure to enter the UUID correctly. I think this one needs the UUID to have the dashes in the proper places.
Click Here
OwnTracks
“OwnTracks – Your location companion
OwnTracks allows you to keep track of your own location.
You can build your private location diary or share it with your family and friends.
OwnTracks is open-source and uses open protocols for communication so you can be sure your data stays secure and private.”
I’m typing this in Dec 2021, and their website now says “Beacons are no long supported in OwnTracks for Android”
Click Here
AutomateIt
Official Description: “AutomateIt is designed to make your life easier by automating various tasks on your Android smartphone or tablet. Define a set of your desired behaviors in response to events on your Android device. Each behavior/rule is defined as a pair of Trigger-Actions.
“If you need your phone to adopt some autonomy, you can’t go wrong here” – www.androidpolice.com
“sometimes I’d like my phone to do stuff all on its own. It’s an Android after all” – www.androidapps.com
“AutomateIt Is a Simple and Free Android Automation Tool” – www.lifehacker.com
“It’s truly an amazing app” – www.androidpit.com”
Click Here
Tasker
While Tasker is a popular automation app on Android, it does not have a well functioning system for working with beacons. The killer weakness is the reaction time; it will react to being near a specific beacon (“BT Near”) in 47 seconds at best when the screen is turned on; that’s terrible. When the screen is off, reaction time is 4 minutes or more…That’s a very, very long time to stand in a dark room waiting for the lights to come on automatically! Basically this app is unusable for most time-sensitive usage cases, but if you have a case that is not time-sensitive, this might be a good one to try.
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Apple iPhone compatible apps:
Pushcut
This is a relatively new one that I just discovered. It seems very high level with lots and lots of options. I tested out using a beacon to trigger an action, and it worked quite easily. But there are some restrictions.
The most notable restriction is that the app can not trigger automatic actions unless you set up a “server”, which is their fancy term for a dedicated iOS device running the app and having it in the foreground all the time; in other words, a spare iPhone or iPad. If you don’t set up a “server”, when your action is triggered (by getting within range of a specified beacon or leaving range of a beacon), it will only pop up a notification on your iPhone screen. You then have to manually tap on the notification to make the action happen….not very automatic. But if you set up a “server”, then you can have actions happen automatically without the need for a tap on the screen.
The only thing that is missing from this app is the ability to trigger an action based on the RSSI signal strength of the beacon. As it is now, your action will get triggered when the app sees the beacon, no matter how far away. Until they add an RSSI strength adjustment function, the best option is to use the TX power of the beacon to adjust the distance. For example, a low TX power setting on the beacon will make it so that the beacon is only “seen” by the app when you are fairly close. High TX power means the app will “see” the beacon from far away.
By the way, you can also use this app to trigger actions when you go out of range of a specific beacon.
Find My Stuff
Official description: “What is more annoying than losing things? Find My Stuff is the ultimate object-finder that makes it easy to safely keep track of your valuables. The Find My Stuff app can locate any object that has a beacon attached. All popular beacon models are supported.”
Click Here
OwnTracks
(Special thanks to customer “Rob” for telling me about this app!)
“OwnTracks – Your location companion
OwnTracks allows you to keep track of your own location.
You can build your private location diary or share it with your family and friends.
OwnTracks is open-source and uses open protocols for communication so you can be sure your data stays secure and private.”
Be sure to enter the UUID correctly. I think this one needs the UUID to have the dashes in the proper places.
Click Here
RDLKeyfob
This app is a bit clunky and the description in the app store is written in Chinese. But it’s still kinda cool for testing the distance measurement and seeing your beacon location on a little radar screen. You can also set up an outer border and then there is an alarm when the beacon gets outside of that border. One odd thing about this app is that the UUID numbers it shows are not correct, so it will not show the actual UUID that is configured into you beacon. But you can just hold your beacon close to your phone and then tap “bind” on the screen next to the beacon with the closest RSSI (closer to zero means the beacon is closer to your phone).
Click Here
If you are interested in writing your own app, we highly recommend MIT AI2 for beginners to learn how to create apps. It only works with Android phones for now, but supposedly iPhone support is coming soon.