Gimbal Beacon Discovery

Gimbal beacon discovery

YES, you can use Gimbals as iBeacons. You have to re-configure it using iBeacon configuration.
Login to Gimbal website, create an account if you don't have one.
https://proximity.gimbal.com/

Open Proximity tab. Click on Manage Configuration button at the top and create new configuration, select iBeacon as beacon type, assign UUID, major and minor. You can choose any UUID you'd like.

Now register your Gimbal beacon, and select your new configuration. You must open the beacon to get to the Factory ID that is required to register.

Download Gimbal manager app for iPhone, open it, select "Configure" option. Open Gimbal and remove battery, put the batter back in, and you should see your beacon in the Gimbal Manager app, click the Update button.

That's it, now you your Gimbal is in iBeacon mode.

Configure Gimbal iBeacon without iPhone?

As of today, Gimbal's beacons will work on both iOS and Android. You are certainly able to set everything up on your Gimbal Developer Account and configure the Gimbal SDK to work with your application and OS of choice. However, you won't be able to test these beacons without a device with BLE or Bluetooth Low Energy support.

This could be a tablet or a phone but most certainly will need a physical device to test things with. Also, keep in mind Gimbal's beacons are compatible with the iBeacon specification but aren't necessarily considered to be official iBeacons (strictly from a trademark/brand perspective). You must have a Gimbal Developer Account in order to use their beacons (whether running in iBeacon or Gimbal proprietary mode) and when going to production will want to consider the pricing per active user to use the service.

As noted before, what's nice about the Gimbal beacons is they are cross-platform. Some manufacturers will only allow their beacons to work on certain platforms or require the use of a proprietary SDK other than one which is open/public. Gimbal uses a proprietary SDK and requires the use of their backend service.

I hope I cleared things up for you. If you wish to know more about using the Gimbal Proximity SDK for Android or setting up the Gimbal Proximity SDK for Android Studio, please click on the respective links.

Update 10/11/2016

You are also able to configure a subset of items directly with the SDK inside your application but Gimbal is really pushing everything to be configured via your Gimbal Developer Account (a.k.a. Gimbal Admin Dashboard).

As far as configuring everything with a separate application from the one you are developing (e.g. a standalone application that allows you to configure your beacons which are associated with your Gimbal account), the only option I'm aware of is the Gimbal Manager for iOS.

Keep in mind this app basically accomplishes the same thing as if you were at your computer and logging into your Gimbal Developer Account. This could be convenient in situations where you are running around placing beacons and are not directly near a computer.

Granted, you could also accomplish the same thing on a mobile browser logging into your Gimbal Developer Account but a native app is likely to work better.

Thus, looking back at your question, the only standalone app for any platform to configure your beacons is the Gimbal Manager for iOS. With that being said, below is a simple list showing current options to configure your beacons.

1. Gimbal Developer Account
2. Gimbal Manager for iOS
3. Gimbal SDK from Within Your Application

Finally, if you need any assistance troubleshooting your beacon signals please see this article.

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