Why can't I find the Estimote Bluetooth beacon using C #, but can Windows find them?

Question

I recently got into the possession of several Estimote devices and was kind of beaten up so far that there was no Windows SDK yet. So I tried to see how easy it is to find the devices on their own, as they are just Bluetooth devices Low Energy.

I found that neither my WPF test (using the wonderful 32feet.NET or just the code), nor the Windows Phone 8.1 device (both the settings screen and the code) can see these beacons.

But they can be seen under the Windows 8 settings screen. This is what I see in Windows 8 when I have Ratings next to me and try to find Bluetooth devices:

Does anyone know why Windows can see them, but nothing I found with C # .NET can detect these beacons? And does anyone have any workarounds that allow me to detect beacons under Windows Phone? I really don't need to talk to them right now, just to find out which lighthouse is nearby.

Answer 1

I found this when searching for similar answers. It seems that currently the applications for Windows Store 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 do not support the problem-free nature of Bluetooth Smart / BLE devices, i.e. Collect them in turn, and not manually with them (not what you want to do when the lighthouses are surrounded). They appear only when you try to manually pair with them.

http://vincenth.net/blog/archive/2014/04/24/building-cross-platform-ibeacon-apps-for-ios-android-and-windows-with-c-and-xamarin.aspx This link is here confirms: "Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Smart devices must first be discovered and hidden through the user interface of a Windows 8.1 PC (PC and devices> Bluetooth) before they are accessible through the Windows Runtime API for Bluetooth"

Really frustrating.

Answer 2

Regarding the question in the title: WinBeacon is a C # managed library that is capable of detecting iBeacons and can also act as a beacon. Great for testing.

Unfortunately, this only works on Windows, not on Windows Phone.