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I configure my Raspberry Pi BLE to send packets of iBeacon, but with my detector, I cannot detect my PiBeacon packets as fast as some of the pre-configured beacons such as estimote or radbeacon. I could not find a way to send more packets with my Raspberry or how I can configure that to make it better and more discoverable, Anyone has experience about this? Is something like that even feasible?

fafa92
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By default, Linux BlueZ will set up manufacturer advertisements to be advertised once per second. You can increase the advertising rate to 10Hz or more as described in my answer here:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/21126744/1461050

That said, this isn't going to make a huge difference in how quickly you discover the beacon -- it typically will change the discovery time from ~1000ms to ~100ms. If you are seeing much slower detection times, you may be facing a different problem requiring a more detailed description of what you are seeing.

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davidgyoung
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  • thank you, I tried it and as you said it doesn't have that much difference in my detection, I'm using Radbeacon USB and when I insert it into my computer my detector immediately discovers it, however, my PiBeacon takes a while to be detected. I changed my Radbeacon packet per second advertisement speed from 10 to 1 and it becomes as low-speed detectable as my PiBeacon I'm not sure what's the problem. – fafa92 May 02 '17 at 00:18
  • So are you saying that the RadBeacon is also slow to be detected if you configure it for 1 Hz transmission? And what do you mean by "a while to be detected"? And what are you using to detect? iOS CoreLocation? Android Beacon LIbrary? – davidgyoung May 02 '17 at 02:31
  • I'm using Bluetooth Beacon Interactor as of now for detection in my windows, so basically when it's about 10 ads/sec just after I insert it into a USB HUB my detector discover it and when I refresh my list it recognize it fast again, another sign is that signal strength changes 1 or 2 times in a second but when I change it to 1 ad/sec, after I insert it into my computer like my PiBeacon it takes 2 or 3 seconds sometimes more to be detected by my detector and after that signal strength change every 2 or 3 seconds once, sometimes even less. – fafa92 May 02 '17 at 02:48
  • Not 100% of beacon packets are detected, so with 1Hz transmission you may only see updates very 2 or sometimes 3 seconds. Based on what you report, I suspect that the BlueZ commands do increase your advertising rate to 10Hz are not working. Perhaps the BLE interface on the Pi does not support advertising at 10Hz. It's hard to say for sure without a packet counter tool. I build one for Android if you happen to have such a device. https://github.com/davidgyoung/ble-advert-counter – davidgyoung May 02 '17 at 02:58
  • I'm using Raspberry Pi zero and I didn't buy those USB modules, I just turn my Rpi Bluetooth to a beacon, could it be the problem? Is there anything for iOS? @davidgyoung – fafa92 May 02 '17 at 03:31