Configuring HM-10 to Support Over-the-Air(OTA) Update

One of the key features of Ibeacons is the ability of apps to manage them remotely or via over-the-air update. This is true especially when maybe hundreds of ibeacons are deployed, there is just got a way to manage them remotely. HM-10 is surprisingly has this feature as well. Other advantage of OTA is that it will allow HM-10 to toggle between an Ibeacon and a regular Bluetooth module which can enable it to gather information on its surroundings and transmit it to a server without the need for an external microcontroller.

My previous post(The proper way of turning the HM-10 into Ibeacon) only dealt with(obviously from its title)how to configure HM-10 into ibeacon. But it did not mentioned about how to configure it to support Over-The-Air update which I still do not know during that time of writing. So now, I am willing to share with my readers and visitors how to really turn HM-10 into a real ibeacon.

Actually, it is very simple to do it, HM-10 should be connectable and be able to receive incoming data while broadcasting the ibeacon signal. By turning these off, we are sacrificing the few milliAmps of power consumption, but trade-off is really worth it. Here is the procedure:



I have proven this to work by modifying the source code of the android app that I used in my previous post(More Fun with HM-10). To describe in more detail the modification I made, I just replaced the following line(in bold letters)) in DeviceControlActivity.java:

private void makeChange()
{
string str=RGB[0] + "," + RGBFrame[1] + "," + RGBFrame[2] + "\n";
......
}

with this new code(in italics)to turn off the ibeacon:

private void makeChange()
{
string str="AT+IBEA0";
......
}

(credit to danasf of Instructables.com)

The effect of my change is that each time the value of any of the led dimmer slider control changes, the android app will send the command "AT+IBEA0".  

For security reasons, just enable password protection so that accessibility can controlled and restricted.