UWB-based communication with multiple devices

Can I use Nearby interaction to determine the location of 3 or more devices?

I learned that by adding a session through the article below, I can interact with multiple devices.

My question is, is it possible to make session A connect only with device A and session B only with device B?

I've just started studying development, so I don't have a lot of knowledge. Thanks a lot for your help.

Replies

Yes, it is possible to use Nearby Interaction with more than 2 devices. The key to managing multiple devices at the same time are:

  • make sure the NISession objects are being managed correctly. Not being released or overwritten, for example
  • make sure the correct NISession is run for each device
  • manage discovery token sharing correctly

These are the common issues we are seeing that trip developers.

Of course, the number of simultaneous sessions is not limitless. The limit may vary depending on the devices and iOS versions. If you exceed what is possible you will get the NIError.code activeSessionsLimitExceeded

It is also possible to connect and range with multiple non-Apple UWB devices that are compatible with U1 chip.

Apple has published here https://developer.apple.com/nearby-interaction/ in the FAQ section a list of recommended UWB chipset manufacturers that are interoperable with U1 chip.

There are already UWB devices on the market integrated with these new chips, e.g. UWB beacons and tags. Just google "UWB beacons" and get one of the available Dev Kits; they typically come with SDK and you can see there examples of ranging with multiple beacons at the same time.

Is there an implementation example in which a phone runs multiple (e.g., 3) NI sessions with multiple (e.g., 3) accessory devices (1 session per accessory device)? I found multiple blogs/forums posts reporting recommendations, but no working example...