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Do all Cars that support Bluetooth also automiatically support iBeacon without any additional work?

I want to test if the user is currently I his/her car. According to this question, this is generally not possible but iBeacon may be a solution. Thus, my question is if iBeacon is always supported by a Car if it has Bluetooth or if special hardware is required.

Lehks
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    To be an iBeacon, you have to be BLE compatible and advertise as such. If the car doesn't (which wouldn't surprise me), it won't. It's like when you use an iBeacon app to transform your phone into a iBeacon, if not used, it won't. – Larme May 17 '19 at 10:28
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    I don't know of any cars that contain an iBeacon. – Paulw11 May 17 '19 at 10:32

2 Answers2

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No, not all Bluetooth enabled cars emit iBeacon transmissions. I can say this with certainty as my 2017 Mini Cooper pairs over Bluetooth yet does not emit an iBeacon transmission.

I also rent late model cars relatively frequently and am the developer of a number of beacon detector apps. While I have not explicitly tested all vehicles I have rented, I have never once noticed one triggering a detector app. My conclusion is that few if any vehicles emit iBeacon transmissions in general use.

I have worked with an insurance provider that provides beacons to be installed in customer cars (typically plugged in to a USB adapter) allowing vehicle usage tracking with the company app in exchange for a discount. An extra hardware solution like this would be required to accomplish your goal with iBeacon.

davidgyoung
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Not sure this is an alternative for you, but you could place a beacon in the car and have an app on your phone detect it and perform an action on that fact. Of course the app then would have to run also when the phone and the app are not actively used.

NFC could also be used this way, provided the phone is always placed in a holder.

Anders Borg
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