WinBeacon

Overview

WinBeacon is a managed .NET (C#) library with a minimal Bluetooth LE Stack that is able to detect and act as iBeacon¹ and Eddystone. This stack doesn't support BLE devices, only the detection and transmission of BLE advertisement packets used by beacons.

Supported operating systems

• Windows XP (not tested, but it should work)
• Windows 7
• Windows 8
• Windows 10*

* For Windows 10, you should be able to use BluetoothLEAdvertisementWatcher instead of this library.

Supported BT4.0 LE dongles

Manufacturer	Product	Chipset	VID / PID	Compatible
ASUS	USB-BT400	BCM20702A0	VID_0B05 PID_17CB	Yes
Belkin	Mini Bluetooth 4.0 Adapter Class 2.10M	BCM20702A0	VID_050D PID_065A	Yes
Pluggable	USB Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy Micro Adapter	BCM20702A0	VID_0A5C PID_21E8	Yes
CSR	USB Bluetooth 4.0	CSR8510	VID_0A12 PID_0001	Yes

If anyone can test with other BT4.0 dongle types, please let me know how it works out or send us a pull request.

Installation

This library needs raw USB access to a BT4.0 dongle. Therefore you should replace the original driver of the dongle with a WinUSB driver. This also means that the default Bluetooth stack is no longer used and Windows will no longer detect the dongle as a Bluetooth dongle until you re-install the original drivers.

To replace or create a WinUSB driver for the BT4.0 dongle, we advise you to use the Zadig tool.

Get it on NuGet

Install-Package WinBeacon

Usage

Detecting beacons

using (var hub = new Hub(0x050D, 0x065A))
{
    hub.BeaconDetected += (sender, e) =>
		{
			Console.WriteLine("Detected beacon: {0}", e.Beacon);
		};
    Console.ReadKey();
}

Advertise as a beacon

using (var hub = new Hub(0x050D, 0x065A))
{
    hub.EnableAdvertising(new Beacon("B9407F30-F5F8-466E-AFF9-25556B57FE6D", 1000, 2000, -52));
    Console.ReadKey();
}

Detecting Eddystone

Currently only the detection of Eddystone UID and URL is supported.

using (var hub = new Hub(0x050D, 0x065A))
{
	hub.EddystoneDetected += (sender, e) =>
		{
			switch (e.Eddystone)
			{
				case EddystoneUid eddystoneUid:
					Console.WriteLine($"Eddystone UID: {eddystoneUid}");
					break;
				case EddystoneUrl eddystoneUrl:
					Console.WriteLine($"Eddystone URL: {eddystoneUrl}");
					break;
			}
		};
	Console.ReadKey();
}

¹ iBeacon is a trademark of Apple inc.