FAQ: Beacon ID

Ruuvi tags are based on the Nordic Semiconductor N52832 System On a Chip which includes bluetooth radio.

The chip has several identifiers. None are printed on the ruuvi enclosure so determining the ID must be done by monitoring the nearby beacons( with Nordic nRFconnect for exmple), checking the signal strength (RSSI) and switching modes with the "B" button.

• The MAC address: Unlike Network Interface Cards which have a manufacturers prefix and a unique device address, bluetooth MACs are simply a random 6 byte number. For example several samples of nRF52832 have addresses of C4:C1:A5:FB:6D:46, C7:10:3C:68:24:C2, F2:C0:C6:43:AD:03. The address is stored in the chip at NRF_FICR->DEVICEADDR[0..1] a 64bit (sic) value in reverse order. The high order 2 bits are always on so if the DEVICEADDR contains C2 24 68 3C 10 87 the advertised MAC will be C7:10:3C:68:24:C2. When the tag is in boot mode (after holding the B button, pressing Reset and releasing B as indicated by a solid RED broadcasting as "RuuviBoot" ) the MAC is broadcast as one higher when running the applications. For example while in boot mode F2:C0:C6:AD:43:04 and in the application F2:C0:C6:43:AD:03. (see nRF52832 Product Specification v1.3 section 13.1.3 and 23.2 Packet configuration) Section 23.14 Registers includes the

  It is broadcast in the bluetooth header. This is NOT available to Apple APplication Interfaces.

  in the distributed firmware
  • raw/highres format 05: It is replicated in the data portion of packet since April 2018. See MyBeacons.info/packetFormats
  • URL format 04: The first byte is included as the last character of the the URL since Sept 2018 and displayed as a integer by ruu.vi as BEACON ID. See MyBeacons.info/packetFormats.html
• DEVICEID[0..1] first 4 hex digits are used for used for Ruuvixxxx BLE identification
• DEVICEADDR[0..1] , DEVICEADDRTYPE ( public:0, random:1)
• NFC Tag Header: NFC.TAGHEADER0..1. (see 13.1.38)
• userID