Configuring the Ibeacon to Detect other BLE(Bluetooth 4.0) Devices with Raspberry Pi and Python

The Ibeacon from Ziruz Technologies is not just simply an Ibeacon, it can also be configured to detect other Bluetooth Low Energy(BLE) devices. And more recently, one AT command has been added to make the Ibeacon detect other Ibeacons, but the HM10 module will need a firmware upgrade so that the new command will be available for use.

We can use the previous setup we used in my previous article(Configuring Ibeacons using Raspberry Pi B+ and Python) so that all we need to do is create a python program. And here is the python program I used to scan other BLE devices:

import serial
import time
port = serial.Serial("/dev/ttyAMA0", baudrate=9600, timeout=3.0)
port.write("AT+RENEW")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
port.write("AT+RESET")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
port.write("AT+ROLE1")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
port.write("AT+IMME1")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
port.write("AT+SHOW1")
rcv = port.readline() 
print rcv
rcv = ""
while True:
    port.write("AT+DISC")
    rcv = port.readline() 
    print rcv
    rcv = ""
    time.sleep(10)

The AT+DISC will scan all BLE devices and will just return the MAC address, the newest firmware version has the command AT+DISI? and this command will return the UUID, RSSI, Major, Minor, Measured Power and the MAC Address. The command AT+DISI? is available with firmware version V539, to check the version of the firmware use AT+VERS?

If your current Ibeacon does not support the latest version, you can update the firmware by following this procedure.