flutter_beacon

Flutter plugin to work with iBeacons.

An hybrid iBeacon scanner SDK for Flutter plugin. Supports Android API 18+ and iOS 8+.

Features:

Automatic permission management
Ranging iBeacons
Monitoring iBeacons

Installation

Add to pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  flutter_beacon: ^0.2.4

Setup specific for Android

Nothing.

Setup specific for iOS

In order to use beacons related features, apps are required to ask the location permission. It's a two step process:

Declare the permission the app requires in configuration files
Request the permission to the user when app is running (the plugin can handle this automatically)

The needed permissions in iOS is when in use.

For more details about what you can do with each permission, see:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/choosing_the_authorization_level_for_location_services

Permission must be declared in ios/Runner/Info.plist:

<dict>
  <!-- When in use -->
  <key>NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
  <string>Reason why app needs location</string>
  <!-- Always -->
  <!-- for iOS 11 + -->
  <key>NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
  <string>Reason why app needs location</string>
  <!-- for iOS 9/10 -->
  <key>NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription</key>
  <string>Reason why app needs location</string>
</dict>

How-to

Ranging APIs are designed as reactive streams.

The first subscription to the stream will start the ranging

Initializing Library

try {
  await flutterBeacon.initializeScanning;
} on PlatformException catch(e) {
  // library failed to initialize, check code and message
}

Ranging beacons

final regions = <Region>[];

if (Platform.isIOS) {
  regions.add(Region(
      identifier: 'Apple Airlocate',
      proximityUUID: 'E2C56DB5-DFFB-48D2-B060-D0F5A71096E0'));
} else {
  // android platform, it can ranging out of beacon that filter all of Proximity UUID
  regions.add(Region(identifier: 'com.beacon'));
}

// to start ranging beacons
_streamRanging = flutterBeacon.ranging(regions).listen((RangingResult result) {
  // result contains a region and list of beacons found
  // list can be empty if no matching beacons were found in range
});

// to stop ranging beacons
_streamRanging.cancel();

Monitoring beacons

final regions = <Region>[];

if (Platform.isIOS) {
  regions.add(Region(
      identifier: 'Apple Airlocate',
      proximityUUID: 'E2C56DB5-DFFB-48D2-B060-D0F5A71096E0'));
} else {
  // android platform, it can ranging out of beacon that filter all of Proximity UUID
  regions.add(Region(identifier: 'com.beacon'));
}

// to start monitoring beacons
_streamMonitoring = flutterBeacon.monitoring(regions).listen((MonitoringResult result) {
  // result contains a region, event type and event state
});

// to stop monitoring beacons
_streamMonitoring.cancel();

Under the hood

iOS uses native iOS CoreLocation
Android uses the third-party library android-beacon-library (Apache License 2.0)

Author

Flutter Beacon plugin is developed by Alann Maulana. You can contact me at kangmas.alan@gmail.com.

License

Apache License 2.0

guiassemany / flutter_beacon