Shea Silverman has blogged about creating a bluetooth iBeacon by using a Bluetooth dongle with a Raspberry Pi. He’s written comprehensive, though brief, instructions for setting up the iBeacon and then gone on to explain how to alter the downloadable software to define your beacon data and read it using a custom iPhone app. Read the instructions here. A more comprehensive guide is available over at Adafruit. As Barry Byford has pointed out on Twitter, though, it’s worth noting that there are some restrictions around using the iBeacon name. The new Eddystone format is open and supports similar functionality. There is a Python implementation of the Eddystone URL beacon here.