Beacons in Windows Phone 8.1 - there are no possibilities? - c#

First of all, yes, i have read all other similar questions.
Secondly, i am developing app (WP 8.1 WinRT), which must use Beacons. I read a lot about it, and i know, that generally connection with BLE device is not possible without pairing it first. But hope dies last, so i want to ask about any possibilities I have. It is possible to pair devices in code (according to articles I have read - its not, but maybe someone know the way)? Or just obtain nearby Beacons Id or Name, or ANY information about them? All posts i have found are outdated (from last year, maybe MS or somebody released some update/api?) I search for any kind of solution, api or just idea how to avoid pairing problem. Pairing it manually won't work - 1. not sure if it is possible to pair beacons, 2. its too many of them (beacons I need)
I look for anyway to communicate or even obtain beacons.
I would be grateful for any option or idea

While I have not tried it yet, there a developer has built an HCI layer to talk directly to bluetooth dongles on pre-Windows 10 machines. It is available here: WinBeacon
This will only work on desktop machines, and not with mobile phones. If you are interested in mobile phones with Windows 8.x, I do not believe there is any solution. I have spoken with Microsoft engineers who have confirmed this to me.
The fundamental problem with Windows 8.x on mobile devices is that any Bluetooth LE scan operation (which is what must be done to search for beacons) must be initiated by the operating system. There is no public API and no known private API that can be used to initiate a Bluetooth LE scan. Pairing with the device will not help -- it is the scan that is important and iBeacon and similar BLE beacon types do not use pairing at all for their primary proximity detection purpose.
Microsoft engineers have told me there are no plans to add this feature to 8.x, as they want to push folks to Windows 10.
While I know this does not help for Windows 8.x, I will note for the record that for the upcoming Windows 10 release, we are working on a port of the Android Beacon Library to Windows here.

Related

Windows phone 8.1 ad network monetization recommendation

Can you please share with me what ad network monetization platform are you using for windows phone 8.1? I am interesting in banners mostly (probably I will add soon video too), and as coverage I want to target europe, usa, global (in this order).
I researched a lot on this topic, and I found quite a lot of recommendations, but some of them no longer apply, since many ad networks are dropping support for windows phone :(.
I have tried several, but I am not happy with the results:
AdDuplex - the single one that is reliable
Smaato - the fill rate is extremely low (at its best is 10%. For example currently I have 20k requests a day, and the fill rate is 2.56% over the last 7 days)
Vmax - integrated through Smaato - 0% fillrate (even if I have requests on India)
MobFox - integrated through Smaato - they are serving ~20-30% ads, but none of them reaches Smaato (I am considering using the API from MobFox to see how it goes).
Microsoft Ad - I am not able to make it work. I know they dropped support for AdMediator this year, and I followed their documentation but no luck: the sdk doesn't install, or is missing the control.
AdRotator - I am using this for mediation purposes, but since from the supported networks only few are still supporting windows phone, I will replace this soon with my own mediation algorithm. (Currently I am using AdRotator with Smaato and AdDuplex)
Is there anyone who can help me on this one?
PS: please do not point me to UWP in order to use Microsoft Ad Control, since in my case, most of my users are wp 8.1 (70-80%).
Thanks!
Can you please share with me what ad network monetization platform are
you using for windows phone 8.1?
Based on my personal experience, Microsoft and Ad Duplex network could perform better to my app.
You could refer to Selecting and managing your network.
Since your question intends to be a discussion one which cannot be answered objectively, I'd like to suggest you to open up a discussion thread here and listen to other community's advice.

Developing for BLE windows 8.1

I've found scatterings around the web but no concise answer. Everyone talks about developing BLE for Android and iOS, but how does one develop for Windows in C# (.NET)?
I've found this
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsapps/en-US/2f236b71-a6ac-4c42-aef3-723c3691cbf8/how-to-discover-connectdisconnect-and-reconnect-to-bluetooth-low-energy-device-from-windows-81?forum=wdk
I've tried the C# example, but I don't have any devices with health profiles (and I don't know how to set searching for a generic device). I did try modifying the code but it didn't help
I have a sensor tag and also a generic BLE HM-10 module useful for arduino projects. My iPhone can find both of these devices using the SensorTag application or LightBlue.
I also found this
http://orcs.sebsoft.com/openvision/index.php/8-vision/37-how-to-acquire-data-by-c-from-bluetooth-4-bluetooth-low-energy-ti-ble-keyfob-ti-sensor-tag
I tried starting it up and scanning, but it didn't find any BLE devices. I don't even know if what I'm doing it right.
I have a BT 4.0 USB dongle.
How on earth do I detect a bluetooth device?
Thanks
Here is a two-part blog post about enumerating and configuring BLE devices in Windows 8.1.
BLE for developers in Windows 8.1 Part I
BLE for developers in Windows 8.1 Part II
After reading this, the documentation on MSDN seemed to make a lot more sense.
This is just a guess, but if you're using a generic HM-10 BT module, you might need to program it first to be discoverable and pairable.
You do that using AT commands which you can find in the HM-10 datasheet. The way to send those commands to the module is up to you, you can either use a microcontroller, Arduino for example, or via a serial console.

Accessing WiFi information from Windows Phone 7

I am currently trying to extract WiFi information such as signal strength and MAC address from my windows phone 7.5 for an accurate location app I am working on. The OpenNETCF.Net framework has all the functionality I require (and is even described my MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa446491.aspx) however I cannot seem to be able to import the namespace into my project using visual studio. It complains that the framework was not designed for windows phone projects. Is there any way around this? Or does there exist and equivalent framework which would work on WP7?
Thank you
Windows Phone 7 is only distantly related to Windows Mobile & Windows CE (for which that library is for).
There are a few how-tos for dealing with network information on MSDN, although I don't believe that WiFi signal strength is made available to apps at this point in time.
It is worth noting that there is a specific how-to for accessing location information, where the operating system can use Wi-Fi signal information to help triangulate location, where GPS is not working.
I'm afraid that it is impossible on Windows Phone current version

how to make call from pc using local landline phone services

I have a desktop application of address diary, developed in C# .Net.
I want to make call from software throw land line phone service,
in my office we have 8 phone lines, so i want to select line before call,
i want to use headphone and mic in place of phone instrument.
how to connect phone lines to pc. i have more then 8 phone lines
is it possible ? if yes then how and which hardware i need for this.
Have you thought of the Skype API: http://developer.skype.com/public/skypekit
or
http://www.twilio.com
Get rid of the landlines and use a service. Much easier in my opinion. Then it would be far more scalable as well.
If you want to go down the telephony services path check out this library: https://github.com/markjulmar/atapi.net/
Hardware for landlines would just include 8 modems and selecting which one to use, before making a call.
I would assume that the atapi library contains functions to select the audio input and output. If not there are plenty of c# libraries for recording audio, in which you could pass the stream through to the library.
I wasn't going to point you down this direction but as per #Saif Khan comment you can use Asterix.
Using Asterix
Step 1 - Get a server install Asterix on it. http://www.asterisk.org. It's open source.
Step 2 - Get supported hardware e.g. http://www.asterisk.org/hardware
Step 3 - Communicate to it with http://sourceforge.net/projects/asterisk-dotnet/ (open source c# to asterisk library.
This maybe overkill for you, I don't know. I suppose I shouldn't assume :)
Since Google Voice is still free in United States and Canada. You can use this Google Voice API in C#.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gvoicedotnet/
Doesn't want to sound like a noob, but did you try out Windows Dialer? You will need x number of 56k dialup voice modem depending on the no. of connections you have and you want to use.
It should work just fine. Test it out, and if it works well, you can get your app synced with your existing software to export the number to the dialer upon calling. (There is no such functions on the dialer app yet.)

how to send and read SMS from mobile attached to PC

I am building a Windows Desktop software that will respond to SMS request and sending a SMS as reply automatically.
The software is ready and working just fine but it works only and only with Nokia Mobiles and the prerequisite is that Nokia's PC Suit has to be installed first before my app can work.
But now my customer wants to change his mobile so he wants me to change programming so that it works with any mobile.
I am at loss as to how to do this?
Can someone please help me here. I am ready to recode the whole app if required.
My preferred platforms are Delphi, VB.NET and VB6.
There are extended AT commands that you can send to your phone's virtual serial interface that tend to work well on many phones. See this for more info: http://www.developershome.com/sms/howToSendSMSFromPC.asp
Now all you need to do is find serial drivers for the supported phones. This used to be really simple, but is harder these days. Bottom line is, it is probably your best option.
"Any mobile"? That's a tall order. I'm not sure your customer knows what he's asking for. Different types of phones are different and there isn't some way to make the same program run on all of them.
What you can do, though, is make it run on any supported mobile. You can keep most of your existing PC-side code; only the part that talks to the phone has to change. Encapsulate that into some sort of interface in a separate module, and that's your specific code for talking to Nokia phones. Your app now supports Nokia.
Then figure out how to do the same thing for an Android, or a Blackberry or an iPhone. Build those specific parts into their own modules that all implement the same basic interface. With each new phone type you figure out how to talk to, your list of supported devices will grow.

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