Develop Reference

Can we turn our Android device into a beacon?

Hi recently I started working on beacons. I am using estimote beacons for my purpose. But I got a doubt whether we can turn our device into beacons. If not why.
Thank you.

EDIT: This is now possible in Android 5.0 and to a limited extent in Android 4.4.3+. See here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/25035954/1461050
Unfortunately, this is not possible as of the latest Android 4.4.2, because Android does not support BLE peripheral mode needed to advertise as an iBeacon. See here for details.
The good news is that peripheral mode support has been added to the Android open source project, so this may be possible in a future release, perhaps Android 5.0. While Google has made no announcements, look for a release in June 2014 during the Google I/O conference.

Make Samsung Android device advertise as an iBeacon

Has anybody used Samsung's Bluetooth LE APIs to make a Samsung Android device advertise as an iBeacon? This should be possible, but I do not have access to a device to try it.
If anybody has used it to make a Samsung Android device advertise as any other Bluetooth LE peripheral, I would like to know that, too.
EDIT: This is now possible on Android L. See here.

EDIT: this answer is about older Samsung phones with Android 4.2. Samsung devices with Android 5.0+ can advertise beacons successfully.
Unfortunately, #reTs and #duncan-c are right (+1 for each of them). The Samsung BLE SDK cannot send out real BLE advertisements as is required for iBeacons.
I was holding out hope because their documentation says "allowing applications to create and advertise Bluetooth smart services and characteristics". I wrote an app to prove whether this actually worked, and learned that their documentation is simply misleading. The Samsung BLE SDK will not make Samsung devices transmit advertisements over the radio.
See full details in this blog post.

http://developer.samsung.com/ble
You can view the official "Samsung BLE SDK Guide and Hints" on the above link.
On page 12, point 10, it said :
"The current version of the SDK supports only the GATT central role. Peripheral roles may
be supported in future releases."

I'm told that with the current firmware it's not possible. (I'm not an Android developer so I haven't confirmed this first-hand.)

Does Android KitKat allows devices that support Bluetooth LE to act as a peripheral device?

Till Android 4.3, an Android device with Bluetooth Low Energy support could only act as a central device. As is given in the Android 4.3 Bluetooth LE docs:
Android 4.3 (API Level 18) introduces built-in platform support for Bluetooth Low Energy in the central role and provides APIs that apps can use to discover devices, query for services, and read/write characteristics.
With the introduction of Android 4.4 KitKat, can it also behave as a peripheral device now? I couldn't find any documentation of that. If not, then do we have to wait for Android 4.5 for getting the BTLE peripheral mode on Android device? Or is there any alternative way in which an Android device can be made to act as a peripheral device?

Not in this version but there is evidence that it is coming soon.
If you look in BluetoothGatt.java in the android-19 sources there are new methods listen and setAdvData that weren't there in android-18.
However these are not documented as I don't think native support is complete yet. The last check in on AOSP for peripheral mode was titled "LE: Add peripheral role support (2/4)". Also, setAdvData and listen have this code:
if (mContext == null || !mContext.getResources().getBoolean(com.android.internal.R.bool.config_bluetooth_le_peripheral_mode_supported))
{
throw new UnsupportedOperationException("BluetoothGatt#listen is blocked");
}
Looking in android/platform_frameworks_base/blob/master/core/res/res/values/config.xml from the Android sources you can see this is currently disabled:
<!-- Boolean indicating if current platform supports BLE peripheral mode -->
<bool name="config_bluetooth_le_peripheral_mode_supported">false</bool>

Thanks everyone for the answers. Just to update, as of June 2014, it is offered in the Android L Developer preview. Hope to see it in the Android L official release. From their blog New in Android: L Developer Preview and Google Play Services 5.0:
The L Developer Preview, lets you explore many of the new features and capabilities of the next version of Android, and offers everything you need to get started developing and testing on the new platform. Here are a few of the highlights for developers:
BLE Peripheral Mode — Android devices can now function in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) peripheral mode. Apps can use this capability to broadcast their presence to nearby devices — for example, you can now build apps that let a device to function as a pedometer or health monitor and transmit data to another BLE device.
Update:
The bad news is that BLE Peripheral mode will only work on the newer Android devices (as per the date), viz Nexus 6 and Nexus 9. It won't work on Nexus 4/ Nexus 5/nexus 7/ nexus 10 even if you update it to Android 5.0. You can read the comment by one of the Android Project manager on BLE advertise mode not working ticket. He says:
We introduced BLE peripheral mode in Android 5.0 Lollipop. Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 are the first two production Nexus devices that support BLE peripheral mode. Due to hardware chipset dependency, older Nexus devices (4/5/7) will not have access to the feature on Lollipop.

http://developer.android.com/sdk/api_diff/19/changes.html
By looking at the full api difference, the answer in short : NO
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To add peripheral role support now you have to get your hands dirty to customize the Bluedroid stack in the OS level, or try your luck on XDA developers to see if anyone has done this before. I am not sure the current Android phone support peripheral role at hardware level,though .

Detect proximity using Bluetooth LE "Proximity" profile Android

Problem definition:
I've been trying to use BLE proximity profile for Bluetooth LE on Android. Some of the devices like new generation Google Nexus tablet with 4.3 Android support BLE and can act as a central device.
I read the Android official documentation of the Bluetooth LE but their doesn't seems any support for that. Is their any workaround to implement our own proximity profile?
Questions which talk about proximity profile on Android but are of no help
Reading Bluetooth RSSI for BLE proximity profile in Android.
How to use the profile of PROXIMITY PROFILE,IMMEDIATE ALERT SERVICE and Find Me Profile in android 4.3 BLE?
BTLE (Bluetooth Low energy) development kit - must have proximity profile
Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

June 2014:
Thanks everyone for the answers. Just to update, as of June 2014, BLE Peripheral mode is offered in the Android L Developer preview. So now Android devices can act both in peripheral and central role. Hope to see it in the Android L official release. Quoting from their blog New in Android: L Developer Preview and Google Play Services 5.0:
The L Developer Preview, lets you explore many of the new features and capabilities of the next version of Android, and offers everything you need to get started developing and testing on the new platform. Here are a few of the highlights for developers:
BLE Peripheral Mode — Android devices can now function in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) peripheral mode. Apps can use this capability to broadcast their presence to nearby devices — for example, you can now build apps that let a device to function as a pedometer or health monitor and transmit data to another BLE device.
Update 16th October 2014:
Its out now! Checkout Android 5.0 wireless changes page.
Update 8th December 2014:
The bad new is that BLE Peripheral mode will only work on the newer Android devices (as per the date), viz Nexus 6 and Nexus 9. It won't work on Nexus 4/ Nexus 5/nexus 7/ nexus 10 even if you update it to Android 5.0. You can read the comment by one of the Android Project manager on BLE advertise mode not working ticket. He says:
We introduced BLE peripheral mode in Android 5.0 Lollipop. Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 are the first two production Nexus devices that support BLE peripheral mode. Due to hardware chipset dependency, older Nexus devices (4/5/7) will not have access to the feature on Lollipop.
Thanks to Rob Anderson for informing.

To elaborate on shubhams's answer:
Unfortunately there is no way for Android devices to act as a peripheral. He can creates GATT servers, services and charachteristics but there is no way to make the advertising.
(https://stackoverflow.com/a/18020153/3061383)
Since Android does not (yet) support advertising no other BLE device is able to initiate a connection to an Android device. As of now the Android device must initiate the connection.

Unfortunately, the android can only act as central not peripheral. So custom profiling is not possible at this point of time. Rather you can use the profile which are being provided by gatt.
For example: Temperature Monitor profile. Instead you can make the custom service and characteristics on iPhone and make it work as beacon.
Also if you are using hardware device of Estimote and other companies, you can reply back the data from android device i.e Services and characteristics have the properties such as Read, Write and Notify. But when you are making iPhone as Beacon, then you won't be able to receive the value from android device.

Android 4.3 as a Bluetooth LE Peripheral

Quick question. I can't seem to find this in the Android docs, so I don't think it is possible, but is it possible to have an Android 4.3 device (in my case, a Nexus 4) behave as a Bluetooth peripheral? I know iOS supports both peripheral and central, but it seems like Android only supports central.
I'd like to connect an Android device to a Mac using Bluetooth LE, but since OS X doesn't support peripheral mode and it looks like Android doesn't either, I might have to go with Bluetooth 2 or another communication method.

Unfortunately there is no way for Android devices to act as a peripheral. He can creates GATT servers, services and charachteristics but there is no way to make the advertising.
Doc: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/bluetooth-le.html
The phone supports the central role;
I'm waiting for this feature too, but it seems we have to wait for next Android releases.

Yeah, Android 4.3 does not support peripheral mode. I started a feature request on the Android Open Source Project website. If you also want to see this feature, add a comment or star the post. I think they will get around to it eventually, but it is good to let them know that this is a feature that developers are looking for.
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?can=2&q=59693&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars&id=59693
issue: 59693

In API level 4, 4.1,4.2,4.3 its not possible.
Android lollipop API version 5.0.X sdk supports peripheral mode in BLE however this feature is chipset dependent (Phones).

android phones with Broadcom Bluetooth solution already supports it

If you have a Nexus 5 you can install Android L there and try it, I just did it few months ago, Android L has support to act as a peripheral.