Bleam scanner is an inverted Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacon communication protocol. In the inverted communication scheme beacon serves as a scanner, taking this role from a phone that in its turn is responsible for advertising. The main benefit of such a design approach is its ability to function extensively in the background, monitoring RSSI levels. See: https://github.com/Connax-Oy/Bleam-Scanner-2
Thanks for sharing.
You've posted this in the Android forum - is this just the Android part, or do you also have open embedded SDK(s)?
I see RUUVI in the GitHub - how tightly is is tied to them?
Other discussions of BLEAM:
https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/community/f/wireless-forum/73490/switch-from-google-beacon-platform-to-bleam-all-time-background-work
Android SDK closed. Ruuvi was the first we adapted the code for. We are not strongly attached to ruuvi, a new release will be released soon and support for chips and beacons will be expanded
Well it seems that Google Beacon platform is depreciated from 01th April onwards. But yes, indeed Nearby Notifications used to be the part of Android OS, also Chrome browser before prior to it. Google apparently was searching for a new scalable ad business, but the beacon reality hit hard.
I've used to test Nearby Notifications on Android 8 if I remember and they were working well the obvious problem was the lack of adoption, but from the OS side it was awesome. Of course you had to open eg. Google Maps to make it work.
Here we have a different story of reversed scanning, enabled by mobile SDK. And as I see, GitHub is quite active, protocol V3 will be out on 1st June.
Regarding Ruuvi, Bleam was just tied to their current Nordic chipsets as nRF52832, also it's able to run on Accent Systems beacons nRF51822 and soon will be on nRF52811
are there any specific ties, or is it all just standard BLE stuff - so should work on any BLE device from any manufacturer?
In theory yes, in practice it's currently ported Nordic Semiconductor hardware nRF52840; nRF52832; nRF51822 and nRF52811 is coming. We'll port it on more hardware with the new protocol versions.
Yesterday we've published the 3rd version of Bleam Scanner protocol. It’s a huge improvement of the 2nd version, that includes bug fixes, tests and supports new hardware and features:
https://github.com/Connax-Oy/Bleam-Scanner-3