Beacon code

[hoonkai]

Hi

Just wondering what the purpose of the "Beacon code" is. Why is the big endian representation of a seemingly random hex needed in the advert packets?

Thanks

[davidhelms]

The AltBeacon advertisement makes use of the Manufacturer Specific Advertising Data structure as defined in Bluetooth Specification Version 4.0, Volume 6, Part B, Section 2.3 Advertising Channel PDU. The payload of the Manufacturer Specific Advertising Data is arbitrarily defined by the sender, and is generally defined by the manufacturer of the beacon. The AltBeacon specification defines a meaningful data structure for this payload. The beacon code as the first 2 bytes of the payload communicates to the receiver that this payload should be recognized as being an AltBeacon advertisement and that the following bytes should be interpreted as defined by the AltBeacon specification.