Circuit Digest has a new tutorial ESP32 based Bluetooth iBeacon. ESP32 is a small single board computer that can easily be programmed to do different tasks. Many ESP32 boards include Bluetooth so it’s possible to program them to be an iBeacon.
The article first explains how to detect beacons on Android using nRF Connect. This is similar to our post Testing if a Beacon is Working. There’s also a useful table that explains the different ranges for received signal strength (RSSI):
Creating your own beacons means you can customise the advertising and do other IoT-related things at the same. The downside is bare ESP32 boards aren’t as physically robust, easy to configure nor power friendly as a dedicated beacon.