{"id":349,"date":"2015-07-17T13:03:58","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T13:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/ndedtechguy\/?p=349"},"modified":"2015-07-17T13:03:58","modified_gmt":"2015-07-17T13:03:58","slug":"googles-eddystone-an-open-source-ibeacon-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndedtechguy\/?p=349","title":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s \u201cEddystone\u201d\u2014 an open source iBeacon alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beacons are pretty cool little devices. All they do is send out a tiny\u00a0piece\u00a0of information repeatedly. When they get close to\u00a0the beacon, any device that&#8217;s listening for that information can be triggered to do something. Communication is only one way, from the beacon to any devices in the area. The range is typically\u00a0somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-100 feet so the location is fairly\u00a0precise.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 343px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/estimote.com\/assets\/gfx\/press\/thumb\/press-beacon-product-3-thumb.f18cb269.jpg\" alt=\"Estimote iBeacon\" width=\"343\" height=\"179\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image courtesy of Estimote<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a potential beacon application and let&#8217;s assume that\u00a0Starbucks has installed beacons\u00a0in all of their stores.<\/p>\n<p>(<em>This is somewhat simplified but this is the basics in a nutshell.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A beacon in your local Starbucks sits there sending out a very small but unique\u00a0chunk of information\u00a0called a UUID.<\/li>\n<li>Someone with the Starbucks app installed walks in the store. (The\u00a0app is waiting to hear from\u00a0any of those Starbucks beacons.)<\/li>\n<li>Once the app\u00a0recognizes the UUID it checks it against the listing of beacons it knows about and figures out which store you&#8217;re in. It can then be helpful and do something like this:\n<ul>\n<li>Offer you the option to order &#8220;the\u00a0usual&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Show\u00a0you a\u00a0daily special<\/li>\n<li>Let you know the approximate wait-time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>With enough information about your previous orders and a little\u00a0logic, it could change\u00a0the order it suggests for you to save you some time.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Every time you stop at this Starbucks around\u00a07:30 AM you order\u00a0a venti\u00a0black coffee.<\/li>\n<li>When the Pumpkin Spice Lattes come out in the fall, you always switch to those.<\/li>\n<li>When you swing by Starbucks in the afternoon\u00a0maybe you&#8217;re on the\u00a0way to drop the kids at practice so you get 3 drinks and some yogurt.<\/li>\n<li>Any time you come in after 5PM, you order decaf.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If done right, it&#8217;s a little creepy but also helpful.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 557px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/info.gigya.com\/rs\/gigya\/images\/Barista.jpg\" alt=\"Unhelpful barista\" width=\"557\" height=\"280\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">I&#8217;m intentionally spelling your name wrong&#8230;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Right now the most common beacon standard has been iBeacon from Apple.\u00a0Unfortunately iBeacons don&#8217;t work with Android. That has really slowed any\u00a0widespread adoption. (Android runs on 1\/2 of the smartphones in the US and 80% worldwide). If you&#8217;re a retailer, you probably wouldn&#8217;t\u00a0be interested in implementing anything\u00a0that excludes at least\u00a050% of your customers.<\/p>\n<p>Google&#8217;s Eddystone is open source and cross platform so it removes that limitation.\u00a0It also provides some other benefits over iBeacons.\u00a0iBeacons can only broadcast\u00a0their UUID and nothing else. In order for that to be useful, the receiving device has to be listening or paying attention for that UUID. With iBeacons\u00a0you have to have\u00a0the vendor&#8217;s\u00a0app installed if you want to receive their benefits.<\/p>\n<p>Eddystone removes this limitation since it can send more types of information (called frames). One of the most helpful frame types is the URL.\u00a0Without having a specific app installed, you could still be prompted with special offers or location based information.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At a vending machine, you could be prompted\u00a0with a special offer or a coupon.<\/li>\n<li>At a bus stop, you could be directed to the Google Maps application and see the bus schedule as well as the current bus positions.<\/li>\n<li>When walking in to a classroom to teach, the system could offer to display instructions for the room operation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Eddystone\u00a0can also transmit telemetry data. Since beacons are\u00a0often battery powered, they need to be changed periodically. It seems likely that the beacons at Starbucks could transmit their\u00a0battery state to people with the Starbucks\u00a0app installed on their phones. That information could then be forwarded to the\u00a0IT group so they can proactively monitor the health and replace them prior to failure.<\/p>\n<p>There are obviously a lot of issues to work out, like how to stop every restaurant, store, and vending machine from spamming my phone. It will be interesting to see how Apple and Google come up with ways to balance user frustration and privacy with the benefits\u00a0that beacons might\u00a0provide.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2015\/07\/meet-googles-eddystone-a-flexible-open-source-ibeacon-fighter\/\">Meet Google\u2019s \u201cEddystone\u201d\u2014a flexible, open source iBeacon fighter | Ars Technica<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beacons are pretty cool little devices. All they do is send out a tiny\u00a0piece\u00a0of information repeatedly. When they get close to\u00a0the beacon, any device that&#8217;s listening for that information can be triggered to do something. Communication is only one way, from the beacon to any devices in the area. The range is typically\u00a0somewhere in the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndedtechguy\/?p=349\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Google\u2019s \u201cEddystone\u201d\u2014 an open source iBeacon alternative<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":637,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Google\u2019s \u201cEddystone\u201d\u2014 an open source iBeacon alternative - ND EdTech - EdTech Topics at Notre Dame<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndedtechguy\/?p=349\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Google\u2019s \u201cEddystone\u201d\u2014 an open source iBeacon alternative - ND EdTech - EdTech Topics at Notre Dame\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Beacons are pretty cool little devices. All they do is send out a tiny\u00a0piece\u00a0of information repeatedly. When they get close to\u00a0the beacon, any device that&#8217;s listening for that information can be triggered to do something. Communication is only one way, from the beacon to any devices in the area. 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Charles investigates, evaluates, and explores new instructional technologies. He also works with faculty to choose appropriate tools and products to help them achieve their teaching goals. Most recently he has been deploying a lecture capture system and creating spaces and systems that allow faculty and students to easily create digital video content. These include a limited deployment of Echo360, a Lightboard for the College of Science and a One Button Studio for the Hesburgh Library. Contact: cbarbour@nd.edu \/ 574-631-2386\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/ndedtechguy\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndedtechguy\/?author=637\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Google\u2019s \u201cEddystone\u201d\u2014 an open source iBeacon alternative - ND EdTech - EdTech Topics at Notre Dame","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndedtechguy\/?p=349","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Google\u2019s \u201cEddystone\u201d\u2014 an open source iBeacon alternative - ND EdTech - EdTech Topics at Notre Dame","og_description":"Beacons are pretty cool little devices. All they do is send out a tiny\u00a0piece\u00a0of information repeatedly. 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