Review about the iBeacon Technology from The First Israeli iBeacon Hackathon 18-19.12.14
The held by Gil Elgrably, Co-Founder and CTO of Zik-it.com
For more details: www.zik-it.com
10. What is a
Beacon ?
Small wireless device that
constantly
broadcasts radio signals to nearby
smartphones.
Allowing indoor location.
Based on Bluetooth Low Energy
(BLE).
Advertising Interval (=
Frequency).
Broadcasting Power (= Range).
“ If a beacon exists in the wild
and there is no phone around to hear it,
does it exist? ”
11. Bluetooth Low Energy
Supported devices:
• iOS 7.0+
• Android 4.3+
• Windows 8.0+
a.k.a Bluetooth 4.0 Bluetooth Smart.
2.4 GHz radio frequencies.
as Classic Bluetooth, however, use a
simpler modulation system.
First introduced by in 2006 (Wibree).
12. Hardware
Wireless tiny computers
(32-bit ARM CPU, 256KB flash
memory, BLE).
Run for up to 2 years on a single
coin battery.
*Depending on : Advertising Interval &
Broadcasting Power
Estimote SDK extends Apple Core
Location.
Include motion and temperature
sensors.
Estimote
Beacons:
13. What should every iBeacon
have ?
• 3 pieces of identification: UUID, Major,
Minor.
• 3 more pieces of information:
RSSI, TX Power and MAC address.
• 2 core functions implementation:
Region monitoring , Ranging.
• 4 regions division: Immediate, Near,
15. Last but not least…• Not all beacons are iBeacons (iBeacon must follow Apple’s
protocol).
• The use of beacons requires an app.
• iOS will continue to monitor for beacons if an app is not running
(in contrast to Android).
• Beacons can not collect information about users without their
permission (privacy).
• Estimote has both iOS & Android app (include features demo and
beacons configuration).
16. What's the best location technology?
iBeacon (BLE) Wi-Fi NFC QR GPS
User experience Intuitive Intuitive Tap device Open camera, scan Intuitive
Requires an app? Yes No No Yes No
Smartphone power
consumption
Low High Low Low High
Smartphones
Support
Most smartphones All Most smartphones All All
Accuracy High Medium High High Low
Range Limited Limited Immediate Immediate Unlimited
Infrastructure Absent Mostly exists Absent Absent Exists
Privacy High Low High High High
Indoor capability Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Installation Yes Yes, but usually exist Yes Yes No
Cost 20-40$ Depends 0.1$ Negligible No
Background on myself
iBeacon Israel a place where all the "iBeacon-enthusiasts" (Developers, Bloggers and others) meet to share the latest news, knowledge and insights. Early adopters of technologics.
16 different iBeacon hardware vendors, including Estimote, Kontakt, and Gimbal
From 50,000 being used now, to between 5 million and 10 million next year.
Gimbal may be the beacon of choice where hardware-based spoof protection is a necessity (spoof protection can also be provided by software-layer and cloud-based systems).
Apple quietly announced iBeaconDoes somebody here has iOS8? Has he seen already this UI sign? Does he knows what it means?
The background on Suggested Apps
After installing iOS 8 you’ll begin to notice that sometimes an app icon will appear in the bottom left corner of the lock screen. This feature was introduced with the iOS 8 beta builds and talked about at WWDC back in June. Swiping up on that icon either opens the app (if already installed) or directs you straight to the App Store listing for that app (if not yet installed on your device). iOS 8 uses information about your current location to drive these suggestions. The idea behind this feature is to bring much more local context to your iPhone or iPad with just a single swipe.With iOS 8’s public release, however, Suggested Apps can now also be triggered by iBeacon.
Beacon-triggered Suggested Apps work slightly differently than GPS-triggered ones. The app in question does need to be installed on your device already to be suggested on the lock screen, when in proximity to a beacon.You’ll see the app icon in the bottom left corner and will be able to launch it immediately.
If you have the app downloaded, tapping the icon seems to take you directly into the app without the fuss of “sliding to unlock”.
If you don’t have the app, it seems tapping the icon will take you directly to the app-store where you can download the app.
lighthouse analogyThink of it as a lighthouse emitting light in regular intervals. Mobile apps can listen for that signal and, when they receive it, trigger a location-based action.If a beacon exists in the wild … לפילוסופים שבנינו
higher Advertising Interval = longer signal distance & more battery drain
higher Advertising Interval = more responsiveness & more battery drain
iBeacon-support-for-windows-phone-devices
While windows 8.0 operating system version did introduce Bluetooth LE support, the APIs do not allow scanning for iBeacons because scanning functions are locked down to the operating system. Third party apps are not allowed to perform scans which would be needed to look for beacons. The OS itself has no functionality to scan for iBeacons, only the ability to scan for connectable Bluetooth LE devices and pair with them.
Microsoft is expected to expand support for Bluetooth LE in their upcoming Windows 10 release (late 2015)Bluetooth Low Energy is the infrastructure while iBeacon is the communication protocol.
Typically, multiple iBeacon deployment at a venue will share the same UUID, and use the major and minor pairs to segment and distinguish subspaces within the venue.
Compatible devices
iOS devices with Bluetooth 4.0 (iPhone 4S and later, iPad (3rd generation) and later, iPad Mini (1st generation) and later, iPod Touch (5th generation).
Android 4.3+ (e.g. Samsung Galaxy S3/S4/S4 Mini, Samsung Galaxy Note 2/3, HTC One, Google/LG Nexus 7 2013 version/Nexus 4/Nexus 5, HTC Butterfly, OnePlus One).
Windows Phone devices with the Lumia Cyan update or above. (reports suggest support is not included with Windows Phone 8.1)
Android region monitoring designed to perform periodic scans in the background. By default it scans for 5 seconds and sleeps for 25 seconds (This means that it can take up to 30 seconds to detect entering or exiting a region) Those values can be changed with BeaconManager.
BLE was merged into the main Bluetooth standard in 2010 with the adoption of the Bluetooth Core Specification Version 4.0.
Bluetooth Smart Ready indicates a dual-mode device compatible with both Classic and low energy devices.
Bluetooth Smart indicates a low energy-only device which requires either a Smart Ready or another Smart device in order to function (“snobs” ;)
A recent report has shown that older phones tend to draw more battery in the vicinity of iBeacons, while the newer phones can be more efficient in the same environment. In addition to the time spent by the phone scanning, number of scans and number of beacons in the vicinity are also significant factors for battery drain, as pointed out by the Aislelabs report. At 10 surrounding iBeacons, iPhone 4S can consume up to 11% of battery per hour whereas iPhone5S consumes a little less than 5% battery per hour.
האינטרנט של הדברים הוא מושג המתייחס לטכנולוגיית חיבור של התקנים ממחושבים לתשתית האינטרנט. הטכנולוגיה מאפשרת תקשורת מתקדמת בין מכשירים, מערכות ושירותים באמצעות מגוון רחב של פרוטוקולים ויישומים. האינטרנט של הדברים הוא המשך ישיר של גישות "הבית החכם" ו"העיר החכמה" ויכול להתייחס למגוון רחב של מכשירים. כמו הטלפון מול תאורת הבית והקומקום החשמלי שיוכלו לפעול מרחוק ובכניסת המשתמש לבית.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are both using the 2.4 GHz frequency, however, have different dedicated channels, so they are rather unlikely to interfere with each other.
Advertising Interval (100 to 2000 ms = 10 to 0.5 Hz) signal every second = one period= 1 Hz
Broadcasting Power (-30 to 4 dBm)
Estimote cloud: management and analytics dashboard
Beacons consist of four primary components: Hardware, Firmware, Cloud Server, Mobile SDK
Estimote SDK is a wrapper around the Core Location framework, so if you only need to only access the basic CL functionalities, you'll be fine using only Apple's tools. However, Estimote SDK gives you ability to use features like Estimote Cloud connectivity, adjusting settings of the beacons and making use of the sensor input from accelerometer and temperature sensor.
The BLE radio chip is commonly manufactured by 4 major companies: 1) Texas Instruments 2) Nordic Semiconductor 3) Gimbal 4) Bluegiga
CR2450 is 620 mAh, 3V (AA battery is 200 mAh)
The new 2.1 firmware (released in May 2014) made the beacons more power efficient, increasing their battery life by 15-30%.
UUID, Major, Minor are three components that together create a beacon’s unique identity.
Use case example: UUID – organization\brand (i.e. mayc’s), major – store, minor – department.
(when it comes to large-scale beacon deployments, the mobile app of a particular organization will be programmed to discover only their beacons, while ignoring the rest).
You can set up a region based on just a UUID, or UUID+Major, or UUID+Major+Minor depending on how specific you want the notification to be tied to a particular beacon or set of beacons.
Region monitoring - notify listening app of entry/exit in the region, iOS gives a closed app an opportunity to react, limited to 20 regions, can function in the background.
Ranging - return (to the listening device) an array (unlimited) of all iBeacons found along with their properties (UUID, etc.), works only in the foreground, can approximate the distance from the iBeacon.The distance is categorized into 3 distinct ranges:
Immediate: 0-0.5 meters
Near: 0.5-2 meters
Far: 5-30 meters
Developers can make their apps responsive to iBeacon by using Apple's Core Location APIs in iOS.Not all beacons are iBeacons
An iBeacon is a BLE device emitting advertisement following a strict format, that being an Apple defined iBeacon prefix, followed by a variable UUID, and a major, minor pair.
The Apple’s iBeacon standard is supported on Android devices.iOS will continue to monitor for beacons if an app is not running (in contrast to Android)Only iOS 7+ devices constantly scan for BLE and wake up relevant apps — even if they are closed — when they come within range of a beacon, thanks to Apple's iBeacon protocol (Android devices, on the other hand, do not have a beacon system of this type at the operating-system level). Android apps must therefore scan for BLE, meaning that for Android users to interact with beacons, they have to have the app running on their phone, at least in the background.
Devices running the Android operating system prior to version 4.4 can only receive iBeacon advertisements but cannot emit iBeacon advertisements. Android 5.0 ("Lollipop") added the support for both central and peripheral modes.
Spoofing (לרמות), hijacking, main-In-The-Middle
UUIDs not play any role in the security strategy around beacons. Anyone equipped with a bluetooth discovery app or a bluetooth sniffer can discover the identifiers with great ease.
Samsung Proximity
Proximity is essentially a copycat of iBeacon.The main difference between Apple iBeacon and Samsung Proximity however is the way each responds to Bluetooth LTE beacons. Apple iBeacons can alert a device only if there are specific apps installed that can ‘talk’ to these beacon signals. Samsung Proximity however is integrated directly into the phones hardware, meaning you do not need certain apps to receive such push messages.
While this is good news for retailers – who will be able to send alerts to visiting customers whether or not they are running the store’s own app – it’s not yet clear whether it will be good news for owners of Samsung phones: the company hasn’t provided any detail on how people choose which alerts they do and don’t want to receive.
So which is the best?
We propose that no one technology trumps all others. The best is what works for the customer – one that is simple, frictionless yet ubiquitous. An effective location strategy will require a combination of these complimentary technologies.
Traditional smartphone location services are accurate to +/- 30 meters
New smartphone services provide accuracy under 1 meter… That’s micro-location
iBeacon / BLE :
Advantages
Good Experience – the technology is intuitive, fast and simple.
Native OS integration – special libraries make for more robust application integration.
The wow factor – one of the few technologies that has consumers saying “that’s cool”.
Disadvantages
iOS centric – premium experience for iOS, limited on other platforms.
Requires an app – consumer must install a smartphone app.
Active powered – beacons must be actively powered by a battery or a/c .
Wi-Fi :
Advantages
common standard – most consumers have Wi-Fi enabled smartphones and mapping services can leverage Wi-Fi data for more-precise tracking.
existing infrastructure – many facilities have public Wi-Fi installed.
passive detection – users do not require a native application.
Disadvantages
power hungry – Wi-Fi consumes smartphone power and base stations require a/c power
complex fit-out – for micro-location use, multiple base stations are needed, each requiring power and iternet wiring - expensive electrician services.
Accuracy – accuracy beyond 1 meter is an even more complex installation, limiting potential use cases