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Apple iBeacons
- projectileboy 13y agoFor people pursuing this, it's worth looking back at the successes and failures of Jini, from both technical and market perspectives.
- pohl 13y ago...it's worth looking back at the successes and failures of Jini Could you delve into the relationship between the two? I haven't read much about iBeacons; are they based on the "tuple space" model, or was Jini initially intended for the same market?
- melange 13y agoWhat specifically has Jini got to do with this?
- projectileboy 13y agoJini was trying to solve the same sorts of problems. I mention it because when we look at a new technology, it's often instructive to look at older technologies that were trying to solve the same (or similar) problems. In particular, it's helpful to look at why they succeeded and why they failed. For example, the "web services" community would have been well-served by looking at the successes and failures of CORBA, since the web services folks mostly replicated all the mistakes of CORBA.
- twoodfin 13y agoWas that really an accident? I know many of the WS-* proponents liked to say, "This new web-based technology will be so much simpler than that crufty old CORBA junk." But in many cases it was the same companies with the same agendas doing the design and standardization work, so it's not too surprising that the result was more or less bound to go down the path of CORBA. The main difference, and of course the main motivation, was a protocol that would run on port 80 and have a chance to be "web-routable" through firewalls.
- projectileboy 13y agoThat's a really good point. Certainly the product vendors had the same motivations. But at the time I was often disappointed when I listened to the conversations of developers I worked with, because I rarely heard anyone draw parallels between the two. It was frustrating to work on projects where we'd be six months in and people would be surprised that the ORBs - er, I mean web service platforms - had difficulties talking to one another.
- spullara 13y agoIt wasn't just the product vendors. The people on the two specs were also the same. WS-* was literally the ex-CORBA contributors reimplementing all the same stuff.
- melange 13y agoI don't really see how Jini was trying to solve the same problems. iBeacons are really just a simple way to discover devices nearby broadcasting a UUID. Jini was a super complicated attempt to create a distributed device fabric, which included interface negotiation and driver distribution and all kinds of other complex infrastructure, most of which is redundant now.
- NKCSS 13y agoIsn't this just another spin on NFC?
- skierscott 13y agoWith greater range. NFC has a practical range of about 4cm; iBeacon has a range of about 10-20m.
- NKCSS 13y agoAh, then it must be Bluetooth Low Energy.
- Einherji 13y agoCorrect, it's also not based on RFID like NFC is, and so can in theory be used for a whole lot more.
- mattschmulen 13y agoThere are lots of cool things, easiest way to get started on the peripheral side is to buy a TI Dev kit "Cow Bell" http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2541dk-sensor?DCMP=blestack_ota&HQS=blestack_ota-pr-tf4 http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2541dk-sensor?DCMP=blestack_ota&HQS... , its pretty cool. Temperature sensor, Magnetometer, Humidity, Pressure etc. you will have to flash it to support HID instead of GATT.
- Einherji 13y agoThis is awesome! I've been looking for something like this for a while, thanks a lot for the tip.
- adestefan 13y agoWith just the rough description I've seen I'm almost certain that it's just devices supporting the Low Energy Proximity profile.
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- karthikv 13y agoThis gigaom post has more details on iBeacon: http://gigaom.com/2013/09/10/with-ibeacon-apple-is-going-to-dump-on-nfc-and-embrace-the-internet-of-things/ http://gigaom.com/2013/09/10/with-ibeacon-apple-is-going-to-...
- ZeroGravitas 13y agoHmm, reading that after the estimote pages makes it seem that the gigaom post is just guerrilla marketing for estimote, that's trying to hijack the Apple publicity. Have Apple actually stated anything public other than the word "iBeacon"? Googling around I just find the same rewritten PR material all about estimote, not iBeacon specifically.
- jimiasty 13y agoHey, this is Jakub from Estimote. We have been working on wireless Bluetooth Smart beacons long before Apple made it part of their Core Location API and called iBeacon. If you would like to learn more about Apple iBeacon you could check it here: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreLocation/Reference/CoreLocation_Framework/_index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreLo... Our API and BLE beacons in general are explained here: http://www.estimote.com/api http://www.estimote.com/api
- jgrahamc 13y agoiBeacon’s range is 50 meters (typical Bluetooth range), or 2,500 square meters. That's some weird antenna right there. Assuming it's omnidirectional with a 50m range (radius) then it would cover more like 7,800 square meters. The range of Estimote’s beacons is 50 meters, but the recommended range is 10 meters. If you go with the recommendation, you need 1 Estimote beacon for every 100 square meters. More like 314 square meters.
- ISL 13y ago> 2,500 square meters I'm not sure it's a weird antenna. Looks like the author took 50^2 (square with edge length 50 m) instead of \pi 50^2 (the traditional interpretation of 50 m range).
- ZeroGravitas 13y agoThis is informative: http://estimote.com/api/index.html http://estimote.com/api/index.html Doesn't seem like there's a standard API yet.
- Tyralen 13y agoThere's another company with iBeacon style sensors that I've seen at ArtPrize in Michigan called GeLo: www.gelosite.com
- adestefan 13y agoThere is also Tile (http://www.thetileapp.com/ http://www.thetileapp.com/) which is using them as a way of distributing the finding of lost things. It's an interesting concept, but something I'd never do.
- justx1 13y agoHere is a good article that describes some scenarios that provide a glimpse into iBeacon's potential: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9242393/Why_Apple_s_indoor_GPS_plan_is_brilliant http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9242393/Why_Apple_s_i...
- outside1234 13y agoDoes anyone know if there is an open version of these motes? And what phones other than the iPhone support bluetooth low energy?
- adestefan 13y agoSee http://www.bluetooth.com/Pages/Bluetooth-Smart-Devices.aspx http://www.bluetooth.com/Pages/Bluetooth-Smart-Devices.aspx The Galaxy S3 and S4 have home grown BLE stacks and Android 4.3 has finally announced BLE support in the stack so it should show up on Android phones that get the update (the hardware has been there for ages.) Blackberry 10 announced support this summer.
- melange 13y agoIt's worth noting that iOS devices themselves can serve as beacons - so, for example a payment terminal app running on an iPad can announce itself to nearby iPhones.
- jimiasty 13y agoHi, this is Jakub, Co-founder of Estimote (YC S13). That's correct and any iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) could be turned into a beacon. We have even developed a Virtual Beacon app you could already download from the App Store and simulate beacon and proximity: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/estimote-virtual-beacon/id686915066 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/estimote-virtual-beacon/id68... If one wants to pickup the Virtual Beacon's signals programmatically then our API website could be helpful where we have included source code of few apps http://www.estimote.com/api http://www.estimote.com/api
- eddieroger 13y agoI'm so glad this is out of NDA. My coworker and I rushed through our lunches at WWDC to play with this. The API is so easy, and possibilities of what it can be used with are so broad. The immediate massive downside is that it's iOS only. But, it's a relatively open spec, so porting some logic in a non-copied way should be possible.
- adestefan 13y agoIt should be completely doable in Android 4.3, but you'll have to do it via the Bluetooth API instead of a location API.
- arpit 13y agoCan someone tell me how this compares to something like StickNFind? https://www.sticknfind.com/ https://www.sticknfind.com/
- jimiasty 13y agoStickNFind or Tile are designed to be sticked to moving objects in order to estimate their location from owner phone. Estimote is designed to be sticked to fixed location. Think about it as a lighthouse that is broadcasting its presence and location, so smartphones and other smart devices could estimate their relative location and get the context.
- joezydeco 13y agoSo that implies that the app locating these fixed beacons needs some kind of data backchannel to understand what it's seeing? Unless you have a cached map of that particular store and it's beacons already in your device, right?
- mentos 13y agoI think its everyones dream to walk into a store, type what you're looking for into your phone and see how far it is away from you. How cheap would these have to be in order to make them cost effective to put into every day product packaging? And would too many of these near each other cause too much interference? This would be a great way to cut the store out of the solution and just go straight from product -> customer?
- jonknee 13y ago> I think its everyones dream to walk into a store, type what you're looking for into your phone and see how far it is away from you. Soon you won't even need to go to a store, the things you want will be dropped off to your home or business...
- mitchty 13y agoYou mean like amazon prime? I'll admit amazon isn't always the cheapest, but with subscriptions and whatnot, its way nicer to have things mailed to me. That said the environmental impact of shipped boxes may not be better overall. But damn is it convenient.
- jimiasty 13y agoThat's a great vision and we at Estimote are really into it. But be believe there will always be goods you need to touch and try before you buy (expensive cameras, furnitures, even fashion). Retail stores with sensors could deliver you both great showrooming experience and mobile commerce, something people already do anyway trying in Best Buy and buying from Amazon :P
- jimiasty 13y agoThat's a great vision and we at Estimote are really into it. But be believe there will always be goods you need to touch and try before you buy (expensive cameras, furnitures, even fashion). Retail stores with sensors could deliver you both great showrooming experience and mobile commerce, something people already do anyway trying in Best Buy and buying from Amazon :P
- rada 13y agoI've implemented this as a hackathon project a month ago (an iPhone serving as a broadcaster and an iPad serving as a receiver). It's an awesome technology with a lot of promise but my one BIG gripe is the imprecision of RSSI. At home, the proximity indicator was somewhat accurate. At the office the proximity indicator was not accurate at all - half the time it would be good but the other half it would show the unpredictbale/interchangeable RSSI whether the receiver was at a yelling distance or a whispering distance. (Maybe due to signal interference)? If RSSI cannot be relied upon, it severely limits the utility of iBeacons. A "binary" result (beacon found, beacon not found) can be useful but not near as useful as a reliable distance indicator. For example, my goal for the hackathon was to see if equipment in a lab could be activated by walking around with your phone. If the phone cannot tell that I am closer to equipment A than equipment B, then there is no point and moreover, we should not be referring to this new technology as "micro locations". Having said that, I know of a company here in Minneapolis piloting iBeacons as indoor navigation (to find your way in a mall for example). I don't know if their technology works because they've found a way to ensure more correct RSSI readings, or if they are simply relying on the assumption that stores are far enough apart.
- Osmium 13y agoSince you've got some experience with it, do you have any idea how hard/easy it'd be to get an iBeacon working from a Raspberry Pi equipped with a Bluetooth dongle?
- rada 13y agoI used Apple-provided bluetooth capabilities so my experience is probably not particularly relevant to Raspberry Pi, sorry. One thing to think about is battery life, unless you only need to pair the broadcaster and the receiver once. What I mean is, if you have a listener that is constantly scanning for a signal and doing some logic depending on the signal strength, you are bound to have battery life as your biggest challenge and potentially a deal breaker to any real use.
- adestefan 13y agoIt should be straightforward with BlueZ 5. Good luck finding documentation on how to do it though.
- eddieplan9 13y agoBesides Estimote, another startup that provides dev kit including Bluetooth LE Beacon and API is kontakt: http://kontakt.io http://kontakt.io
- zengr 13y agoPayPal is building an iBeacon too for payments in store.
- lcusack 13y agoI have to imagine iBeacons could be more about the iwatch than the iPhone. I don't want to take my phone out of my pocket all the time to check for new notifications. I would glance at my watch.