BeaconTools - Universal beacon scanning

A Python library for working with various types of Bluetooth LE Beacons.

Currently supported types are:

• Eddystone Beacons
• iBeacons (Apple and Cypress CYALKIT-E02)
• Estimote Beacons (Telemetry only)

The BeaconTools library has two main components:

• a parser to extract information from raw binary beacon advertisements
• a scanner which scans for Bluetoth LE advertisements using bluez and can be configured to look only for specific beacons or packet types

Installation

If you only want to use the parser install the library using pip and you're good to go:

pip install beacontools

If you want to perfom beacon scanning there are a few more requirement. First of all you need an OS with bluez (most Linux OS; Windows and macOS are also possible but untested, see the "Build Requirements" section of pybluez for more information).

# install libbluetooth headers and libpcap2
sudo apt-get install python-dev libbluetooth-dev libcap2-bin
# grant the python executable permission to access raw socket data
sudo setcap 'cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+eip' $(readlink -f $(which python))
# install beacontools with scanning support
pip install beacontools[scan]

Usage

See the examples directory for more usage examples.

Parser

from beacontools import parse_packet

tlm_packet = b"\x02\x01\x06\x03\x03\xaa\xfe\x11\x16\xaa\xfe\x20\x00\x0b\x18\x13\x00\x00\x00" \
             b"\x14\x67\x00\x00\x2a\xc4\xe4"
tlm_frame = parse_packet(tlm_packet)
print("Voltage: %d mV" % tlm_frame.voltage)
print("Temperature: %d °C" % tlm_frame.temperature)
print("Advertising count: %d" % tlm_frame.advertising_count)
print("Seconds since boot: %d" % tlm_frame.seconds_since_boot)

Scanner

import time
from beacontools import BeaconScanner, EddystoneTLMFrame, EddystoneFilter

def callback(bt_addr, rssi, packet, additional_info):
    print("<%s, %d> %s %s" % (bt_addr, rssi, packet, additional_info))

# scan for all TLM frames of beacons in the namespace "12345678901234678901"
scanner = BeaconScanner(callback,
    device_filter=EddystoneFilter(namespace="12345678901234678901"),
    packet_filter=EddystoneTLMFrame
)
scanner.start()

time.sleep(10)
scanner.stop()

import time
from beacontools import BeaconScanner, IBeaconFilter

def callback(bt_addr, rssi, packet, additional_info):
    print("<%s, %d> %s %s" % (bt_addr, rssi, packet, additional_info))

# scan for all iBeacon advertisements from beacons with the specified uuid
scanner = BeaconScanner(callback,
    device_filter=IBeaconFilter(uuid="e5b9e3a6-27e2-4c36-a257-7698da5fc140")
)
scanner.start()
time.sleep(5)
scanner.stop()

Changelog

Beacontools follows the semantic versioning scheme.

• 1.3.1

  • Multiple fixes and internal refactorings, including support for Raspberry Pi 3B+ (huge thanks to cereal)
  • Updated dependencies

• 1.3.0

  • Added support for Estimote Telemetry packets (see examples/parser_example.py)
  • Relaxed parsing constraints for RFU and flags field
  • Added temperature output in 8.8 fixed point decimal format for Eddystone TLM

• 1.2.4

  • Added support for Eddystone packets with Flags Data set to 0x1a (thanks to AndreasTornes)
  • Updated dependencies

• 1.2.3

  • Fixed compatibility with construct >=2.9.41

• 1.2.2

  • Moved import of bluez so that the library can be used in parsing-only mode, without having bluez installed.

• 1.2.1

  • Updated dependencies

• 1.2.0

  • Added support for Cypress iBeacons which transmit temp and humidity embedded in the minor value (thanks to darkskiez)
  • Updated dependencies

• 1.1.0

  • Added support for Eddystone EID frames (thanks to miek)
  • Updated dependencies

• 1.0.1

  • Implemented a small tweak which reduces the CPU usage.

• 1.0.0

  • Implemented iBeacon support
  • Added rssi to callback function.

• 0.1.2

  • Initial release