{"id":374,"date":"2025-09-09T08:44:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T08:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/?p=374"},"modified":"2025-09-09T08:44:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T08:44:02","slug":"can-usb-beacons-receive-beacon-transmissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/can-usb-beacons-receive-beacon-transmissions\/","title":{"rendered":"Can USB Beacons Receive Beacon Transmissions?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>You might wonder whether <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/usb-beacons\" target=\"_blank\">USB beacons<\/a> can be used to enable desktops\/laptops or any USB device to receive beacon transmissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>USB beacons don&#8217;t work this way and only use the USB connection for power. A few such as the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/usb-beacons\/U1\" target=\"_blank\">Minew U1<\/a> have UART USB serial support that&nbsp;can be used to control the beacon but it still doesn&#8217;t detect beacons. It beacon only sends and doesn&#8217;t receive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/u1_smaller-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5130\" width=\"512\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/u1_smaller-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/u1_smaller-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/u1_smaller-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/u1_smaller-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/u1_smaller.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 85vw, 512px\" \/><figcaption>U1 UART Beacon<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>What you need is a &#8216;Sniffer&#8217; such as the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/Gateways\/ABSniffer528\" target=\"_blank\">ABSniffer 528<\/a>. It scans for Bluetooth devices and sends the data via USB to the device powering it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/528_outside_smaller-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3824\" width=\"512\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/528_outside_smaller-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/528_outside_smaller-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/528_outside_smaller-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/528_outside_smaller-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/528_outside_smaller.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 85vw, 512px\" \/><figcaption>ABSniffer 528<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Alternatively, look for a standard Bluetooth dongle that that supports Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) and an associated programming API for <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/bluetoothle.wiki\/esp32\" target=\"_blank\">ESP32<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bluetoothle.wiki\/raspberry_pi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Raspberry Pi<\/a>, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/bluetoothle.wiki\/windows\" target=\"_blank\">Windows<\/a> or <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/bluetoothle.wiki\/linux\" target=\"_blank\">Linux<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You might wonder whether USB beacons can be used to enable desktops\/laptops or any USB device to receive beacon transmissions. USB beacons don&#8217;t work this way and only use the USB connection for power. A few such as the Minew U1 have UART USB serial support that&nbsp;can be used to control the beacon but it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/can-usb-beacons-receive-beacon-transmissions\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Can USB Beacons Receive Beacon Transmissions?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5927,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/5927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beaconzone.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}