Since the introduction of iBeacons by Apple in mid-2013, more and more companies see opportunities for using Bluetooth Low Energy ( BLE) beacon technology in mobile apps.
IBeacons provide real-world context for your apps with micro-location information – outdoors and indoors.
In this post I will show the why, with what and how of building iBeacon functionality in iOS and Android Apps, and what I have learned along the way – including how I verified the current limitations of the Bluetooth Low Energy support in Windows Phone & Store 8.1. This is because the brand-new Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support in Windows Phone 8.1, which became publicly available last week as a developer preview, does not include BLE beacon support (and neither does Windows Store 8.1). Note that there is no Windows Phone in this picture. This is a $5 Qualcomm Gimbal beacon in iBeacon mode, being detected on an Android phone and an iPhone, in an app built with C# and Xamarin:
