Context Aware VR Using BLE Beacons

This paper studies the possibility of bringing context awareness to Virtual Reality applications running on an Android smartphone. By leveraging the tools provided by the Android system to scan and analyze the surrounding environment for Bluetooth Low Energy beacons. The data obtained from the beacons is then broadcasted through the Android system to other applications and Virtual Reality games running on the same Android device. Beacons data contain information about the signal received from each beacon. This data is used to estimate the distance between the beacon and the smartphone. The estimated distance can be used in Virtual Reality applications to change the location of object. The paper proposes a method that achieves the required task from the moment a beacon is detected until the data is passed and used inside the Virtual Reality application. The evaluation of the proposed system is mainly based on the resulted latency, accuracy of the estimated distance and CPU usage. The result shows the latency can be controlled and minimized to ensure smooth Virtual Reality experience.