How to scan for Eddystone beacon from my laptop?

Question

I have a raspberry pi that I have turned into an Eddystone URL beacon and I wish to read the URL on my laptop using python because I have to use the URL further in my web app.

Answer 1

The only way that I have had any success scanning for beacons on Windows 10 using Python is with the Windows Runtime Python Projection (Python/WinRT)

Here is an example scanning and printing the data for Eddystone, iBeacon, and AltBeacon:

import asyncio
import uuid
import winrt.windows.devices.bluetooth.advertisement as winBLE
from winrt.windows.storage.streams import DataReader

async def discover():

    def process_eddystone(data):
        _url_prefix_scheme = ['http://www.', 'https://www.',
                              'http://', 'https://', ]
        _url_encoding = ['.com/', '.org/', '.edu/', '.net/', '.info/',
                         '.biz/', '.gov/', '.com', '.org', '.edu',
                         '.net', '.info', '.biz', '.gov']
        tx_pwr = int.from_bytes([data[1]], 'big', signed=True)
        if data[0] == 0x00:
            namespace_id = int.from_bytes(data[2:12], 'big')
            instance_id = int.from_bytes(data[12:18], 'big')
            print(f'\t\tEddystone UID: {namespace_id} '
                  f'- {instance_id} \u2197 {tx_pwr}')
        elif data[0] == 0x10:
            prefix = data[2]
            encoded_url = data[3:]
            full_url = _url_prefix_scheme[prefix]
            for letter in encoded_url:
                if letter < len(_url_encoding):
                    full_url += _url_encoding[letter]
                else:
                    full_url += chr(letter)
            print(f'\t\tEddystone URL: {full_url} \u2197 {tx_pwr}')

    def process_ibeacon(data, beacon_type='iBeacon'):
        beacon_uuid = uuid.UUID(bytes=bytes(data[2:18]))
        major = int.from_bytes(bytearray(data[18:20]), 'big', signed=False)
        minor = int.from_bytes(bytearray(data[20:22]), 'big', signed=False)
        tx_pwr = int.from_bytes([data[22]], 'big', signed=True)
        print(f'\t\t{beacon_type}: {beacon_uuid} - {major} '
              f'- {minor} \u2197 {tx_pwr}')

    def on_advert(sender, evt):
        for s_data_buf in evt.advertisement.data_sections:
            if s_data_buf.data_type == 0x16:
                data_reader = DataReader.from_buffer(s_data_buf.data)
                s_data = data_reader.read_bytes(s_data_buf.data.length)
                if s_data[0:2]  == [0xaa, 0xfe]:
                    process_eddystone(s_data[2:])
        for m_data_buf in evt.advertisement.manufacturer_data:
            if m_data_buf.company_id == 0x004c:
                data_reader = DataReader.from_buffer(m_data_buf.data)
                m_data = data_reader.read_bytes(m_data_buf.data.length)
                if m_data[0] == 0x02:
                    process_ibeacon(m_data)
            elif m_data_buf.company_id == 0xffff:
                data_reader = DataReader.from_buffer(m_data_buf.data)
                m_data = data_reader.read_bytes(m_data_buf.data.length)
                if m_data[0:2] == [0xbe, 0xac]:
                    process_ibeacon(m_data, 'AltBeacon')


    watcher = winBLE.BluetoothLEAdvertisementWatcher()
    watcher.add_received(on_advert)

    watcher.start()
    await asyncio.sleep(25)
    watcher.stop()


asyncio.run(discover())