Support for Eddystone EID and other beacon layouts for Android.

[stoneman1]

Sorry for long commit. Anyway here is Eddystone EID and other beacon layouts support for Android. Let me know what you think about this approach. I know this is going to be a breaking change, but I think this is better than unbindind and then again binding the beacon manager.

[MacKentoch]

Thank you @stoneman1

Just an amazing huge PR 👏

I will review later, but as a fast feedback I think I really like your approach 👍

[MacKentoch]

Trying to find a way to make things clear for a beacon new comer (React Native devs are more often just JS dev so I don't want them to be afraid of the library). I mean binding is not something natural / easy to understand.

I'm asking below to think loud:

• in fact, why would we need to unbind? If in need to change layout configuration I think about native removeParser method. We could offer JS side these simple methods:

    function addEddystoneUIDDetection(): void {
      BeaconsManager.addParser(EDDYSTONE_UID);
    }
  
    function removeEddystoneUIDDetection(): void {
      BeaconsManager.removeParser(EDDYSTONE_UID);
    }
  

[stoneman1]

Unbinding is needed if we want to support changing the Parsers during running. Altbeacon wants to have all the layouts before binding so adding Parsers did not work. This was the situation when I last time tried it. This is the flow:

1. Add layouts (eddystoneUID, iBeacon and whatever)
2. Bind the manager
3. Now it is scanning for all the layouts defined in step 1.
4. If you try to add a new Parser here it won't start scanning them.
5. Unbind
6. Add layouts
7. Bind again
8. Now it is scanning those added layouts.

Hopefully that made any sense :)

[MacKentoch]

I adapted a bit your implementation to make it more talkative to dev (who may don't even know about beacons):

const { identifier, uuid } = this.state;
    // start iBeacon detection
    Beacons.addIBeaconsDetection()
    .then(() => Beacons.addEddystoneUIDDetection())
    .then(() => Beacons.addEddystoneURLDetection())
    .then(() => Beacons.addEddystoneTLMDetection())
    .then(() => Beacons.addAltBeaconsDetection())
    .then(() => Beacons.addEstimotesDetection()) 
    .then(() => {
      const region = { identifier, uuid }; // minor and major are null here

      Beacons
      .startRangingBeaconsInRegion(region) // or like  < v1.0.7: .startRangingBeaconsInRegion(identifier, uuid)
      .then(() => console.log('Beacons ranging started succesfully'))
      .catch(error => console.log(`Beacons ranging not started, error: ${error}`));

      Beacons
      .startMonitoringForRegion(region) // or like  < v1.0.7: .startRangingBeaconsInRegion(identifier, uuid)
      .then(() => console.log('Beacons monitoring started succesfully'))
      .catch(error => console.log(`Beacons monitoring not started, error: ${error}`));
    })
    .catch(error => console.log(`Beacons ranging not started, error: ${error}`));
   }

Async await way is even more talkative:

const { identifier, uuid } = this.state;
    try {
      await Beacons.addIBeaconsDetection();
      await Beacons.addEddystoneURLDetection(); 
      await Beacons.addEddystoneTLMDetection();
      await Beacons.addAltBeaconsDetection();
      await  Beacons.addEstimotesDetection();

      const region = { identifier, uuid }; // minor and major are null here

      await Beacons.startRangingBeaconsInRegion(region) // or like  < v1.0.7: .startRangingBeaconsInRegion(identifier, uuid)
      console.log('Beacons ranging started succesfully');
      
      await Beacons.startMonitoringForRegion(region) // or like  < v1.0.7: .startRangingBeaconsInRegion(identifier, uuid)
      console.log('Beacons monitoring started succesfully')
    } catch () {
      console.log(`Beacons ranging not started, error: ${error}`);
    }

[plrdev]

I think having higher level api like that can be useful to be easy to use, but it would still be good to have a lower level one as well, as @stoneman1 introduced here. They can coexist and higher level one can use the low level api, so no repetition needed either.

There are real use cases to wanting to change which layouts to listen etc, which the high level api don't allow to be implemented.

[MacKentoch]

I'm thinking about about adding a jack-of-all-trades case:

const parsers: Array<string> = [
 Beacon.PARSER_IBEACON,
 'SOME_CUSTOM_LAYOUT_WHY_NOT'
]; 

await Beacon.addParsersListToDetection(parsers)

It will avoid all these unbinding and binding for each parsers at initialization when we knwo exactly at once what parsers we need.

By the way, credits to @stoneman1 since all of that comes from your precious help.

[plrdev]

A fine idea, takes away the need to call bunch of layout adding methods. But still doesn't remove the possible use cases for lower level access, to change layouts once ranging/monitoring has been started.

[MacKentoch]

Working on removing 1 or more parsers.

I did not even provide an example since I want to find a nice solution. removeParser function exists but I'm not sure it will be the told way to deal with.

[stoneman1]

Sorry been a bit busy. Lower level access would also be cool. I am working on iOS changes to get it to work with all beacons. Btw love your high level API 👍

[dukhanov]

Hello, any updates for this PR, do you have plans to merge it?

[maicWorkGithub]

_reactNativeBeaconManager.default.addIBeaconDetection is not a function

[jdegger]

Why was this great PR never merged? 😢

Is this still - remotely - alive?