beacosystem talk @ mongodb user group dublin @sos100

Sean O Sullivan twitter: @sos100

A Tour of the Beacosystem

Background, trends and what’s next in Proximity and Beacon technology

Me

You

Techie, Comp. Sci.SW Developer

Rococo/Dial2DoIONA

CTO @ Effective SoftwareLocalSocial/mySay

Interested in Proximity / Beacons?

Star

tups

Java / Bluetooth

JSR82 Tools / Implementations

Proximity Platform (WiFi, Bluetooth)

LocalSocial

2000

to 2007

2008

2009

Proximity InterestSome Proximity product track record at scale

Set the standard

400M phones

World’s 1st

Bluetooth, BLE, and Beacons How the Bluetooth Standard helps power proximity

Apple, iBeacon, and Use Cases Where iBeacon fits with BLE and who’s using it

Google Physical Web and Eddystone The Google approach to Proximity

The Beacosystem A run through the increasingly crowded Beacon / iBeacon “space”

Proximity The Near and the Now

Issues, Trends and Resources Step back for a look at some issues, and links for more information

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The Near and the Now

Proximity


WiFi

Bluetooth

NFC Tag

QR Codes

Bluetooth Smart

iBeacon

Technology

Proximity


WiFi

Bluetooth

NFC Tag

QR Codes

Bluetooth Smart

iBeacon

User is Nearby

User Taps

User Scans

SignalsTechnology

User in-store

Proximity

User dwells

User left


WiFi

Bluetooth

NFC Tag

QR Codes

Bluetooth Smart

iBeacon

UnlockCollectDisplay

RewardRAOK*

Signals TriggersTechnology

RAOK = Random Act of Kindness

Proximity

Log

User is Nearby

User Taps

User Scans

User in-store

User dwells

User left


WiFi

Bluetooth

NFC Tag

QR Codes

Bluetooth Smart

iBeacon


RewardRAOK*

Signals TriggersTechnology


Proximity

Log

User is Nearby

User Taps

User Scans

User in-store

User dwells

User left

Analytics

Insight

Top VisitorsBusy hoursBusy AreasDead AreasDwell times

Signals


WiFi

Bluetooth

NFC Tag

QR Codes

TriggersTechnology

Analytics

Insight

Top VisitorsBusy hoursBusy Areas


Proximity

User is Nearby

User Taps

User Scans

User in-store

User dwells

User left

Dead AreasDwell times


RewardRAOK*Log

Bluetooth Smart

iBeacon

Bluetooth Smart aka Bluetooth Low Energy : ideal for proximity use cases

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BLE (Bluetooth Smart)

Sensors on right hand side

HRMs, Smart Home, Connected Locks, Watches, etc. etc.

Devices that can talk to or “see” sensors on left hand sideBranding is “Bluetooth Smart” and “Smart Ready”

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Proximity and BLE

Proximity Beacon on Right Hand Side

Something unique available to device on Left to identify the Beacon

Devices that can “see” sensors on left hand sideBeacons kept (mostly) simple

“I’m Here”Some Unique Information

I see you!

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Place Beacons at specific areas within retail spaces

Customer with Device detects Beacon - can trigger a greeting, an award, an offer, digital product information - and so on…

Beacons used to “mark” physical areas for data collection and engagement (notify, reward, context, etc.)

Beacons in use

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Bluetooth - BLE in particular, used for location and servicesEver wondered about this?

Appeared since iOS7

Has been here “forever”

WiFi and LocationFun and games

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iBeacon

“I’m Here”

Advertising FrequencyUpdate ControlsData

I see you!

Ranging Controls

Some Zone

Beacon set to “red” range

Beacon set to “orange” range

(and so on, red is “tightest”,

green is “widest”)

User path

User only “trips” proximity with the beacon if it crosses within the range threshold for that specific beacon. Gives users fine grained control over how they layout Beacons around a given Zone.

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Bluetooth Low Energy Device Battery powered, USB, mains powered, solar powered, passive poweredRepeatedly transmits a message in an agreed way (it advertises itself)All iOS and all new Android devices can “see” this message

Range : 10M / 30 feet

iBeacon ecosystemApple knows how to build a value network

Background Notifications

(iOS)

Proximity APIs (iOS)

iBeacon Support in all

mobile devices

Certified iBeacon

Hardware Programme

Exemplar usage in Apple Stores

All iOS devices can act as an

iBeacon

Developers can quickly build in to

apps

Place based push notification of value

to retailers and venue owners

Large market for proximity powered

experiences, including on Watch

Supports p2p experiences, and next generation

POS and hospitality

Wide range of hardware available

Showcase what’s

possible

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So what!

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Greetings and Notifications Trigger welcome messages on arrival, after a certain dwell time, or after departure

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Offers / Promotions Trigger offers in certain areas, or make them “unlockable” only if in the store or specific area

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Points or Rewards Trigger points for walking in

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Store “re-arranges” itself As you move - so what’s nearest is under the thumb

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“eCommerce Style Data for real world Locations”

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Physical - Digital Google Analytics for the real world

Data. Data. And Data. Same as eCommerce: where, how long, who came back, what engaged, etc.

Data

Location

User

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Row location_id duration created_at name4168 2954 1015 2014-07-10 11:37:00 1. Solutions 3445 2953 1015 2014-07-10 11:37:00 2. Servers 2462 2952 1015 2014-07-10 11:37:00 3. Storage 5224 2955 1015 2014-07-10 11:37:00 4. Innovation 985 2950 1015 2014-07-10 11:37:00 5. Client Computing Devices 6119 2963 1015 2014-07-10 11:37:00 6. Retail

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MongoDB was introduced to store and serve denormalized location data instead of building a tree of data out of the SQL result on every call (which is how we started!).

DEFAULT_LOCATION_DURATION = 1.minuteLOCATION_VISIT_MIN_INTERVAL = 45.minutesSHOPZONE_VISIT_MIN_INTERVAL = 121.seconds

• Any new visit to a beacon attached to a location or zone, creates a OwnerVisit record with a duration of DEFAULT_LOCATION_DURATION

• A given visit to a location is aggregated with the previous visit if the previous visit was done less than LOCATION_VISIT_MIN_INTERVAL ago

• A given visit to a zone is aggregated with the previous visit if the previous visit was done less than SHOPZONE_VISIT_MIN_INTERVAL ago

• Visit to a zone triggers a visit for its parent location

Visits, Dwell Times, Paths

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Use Cases

See a great list at Mobisfera (link at end)

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Sports / Stadia

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Airlines and Airports

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Fashion Retail

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Hailo in-cab payment

Museum / Galleries

Welcomes / Goods Pick-up

High Value : Cars

High Value : Real Estate / Property

Data. Data. And Data. Which houses were most popular? Who dwelled longest? Which rooms didn’t work?

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OFFERS PUSH

Lots of the initial focus has been on “pushing offers”. Not good!

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Instead : ask yourself - “what would Steve do” :-)

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Physical Web

Proximity approaches comparediBeacon vs Physical Web

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Product

Source

Hardware

Shipping Apple product, APIs and functionality baked in to iOS, many

hardware manufacturers

Beacon Payload

iBeacon Physical WebRight now a Project, no in-built support in Android or elsewhere

Alerts / Background

Specification is public, controlled by Apple

Open Source project, Apache 2.0 Licence

Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons, Specification by Apple, must be certified to manufacture iBeacon

Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons, Specification by Google, anyone

can manufacture

ProximityUUID, Major and Minor code

URL formatted according to URIBeacon Specification

iOS allows background notifications No proactive alerts, and no background scanning

pronounced YUR-ee-BEE-kunURIBeacon

‣ Original specification for Beacon format etc.

‣ Now superseded / absorbed by Eddystone

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UriBeacon advertises a URL

Physical Web App sees UriBeacons nearby, displays them in order of nearness

UriBeacons transmit URLs, App interprets URL…

Google Physical Web : how it works

Site / Content

Interactive Web

Deep link to AppControls over connected device

URL can lead to…

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Story so farGoogle Proximity Timeline

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2013 2013 2014 2015

BLE Hardware in various Android devices, no official APIs, some manufacturer APIs == confusion

JellyBean First real BLE support in 4.3 - scanning, GATT etc.

Physical Web September 2014: Physical web appeared as a project, with URIBeacon spec.

Eddystone July : Eddystone announced - major evolution in approach to proximity

Proximity and Nearby APIs Proximity APIs released; Nearby and Place APIs now Beacon-aware

iOS Today Widget For Chrome on iOS - now hunts for Beacons nearby when tapped

Google’s open standard for BeaconsEddystone™

‣ Protocol Specification

‣ Defines the message format for messages transmitted by Beacons

‣ Designed to work on Android and iOS

‣ Frames used to define use cases • Three initial types: URL, UID, TLM

‣ Extensible • Eddystone-EID

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Used to broadcast a URLURL Frame : Eddystone-URL

‣ Goal: get a URL to receiver

‣ Compressed to fit in advertisement packet restrictions of Bluetooth Smart

‣ Described as “backbone of the Physical Web”

‣ This now does what URIBeacon used to do

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Used to broadcast a unique IDUID Frame : Eddystone-UID

‣ Contains an opaque, unique 16-byte Beacon ID composed of • 10-byte namespace ID • 6-byte instance ID

‣ You decide how you might use the UIDs • e.g. namespace == customer, instance == individual beacon • handy for filtering (I’m only looking for Brown Thomas

Beacons, so filter on namespace 495464)

‣ You can (kinda) think of the UID use case as being the “iBeacon” use case

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Used to pass on Device informationTelemetry Frame : Eddystone-TLM

‣ Battery voltage

‣ Temperature

‣ Light

‣ Packets / activity

‣ Uptime

‣ (etc.)

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Security and “protect my network”Eddystone-EID

‣ Eddystone-EID : A time-varying beacon frame that can be resolved to a stable identifier by a linked resolver, such as Proximity Beacon API

• Prevent other parties from using their beacons. • Preserve user privacy in scenarios involving wearables or

other equipment carried by the user. • Lease their beacon network to other parties in a way

that allows a provable 'off switch' for access. • Provide a strong signal that a user is at a particular

place, that is not easily spoofed62

Cloud based store for Beacon informationProximity API

‣ REST API - core is the Beacon Resource • beaconName, AdvertisedID, Status, Expected stability, Latitude

and longitude coordinates, Indoor floor level, Google Places API Place ID, Freeform text

‣ Status • Active, Decommissioned, Inactive

‣ Stability • Stable. portable, mobile, roving

‣ Beacon Methods • Activate, Deactivate, Decommission, Get, List, Register, Update

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Cloud based store for Beacon informationProximity API

‣ beaconName • Has the format "beacons/N!beaconId" where the

beaconId is the base16 ID broadcast by the beacon and N is a code for the beacon's type. Possible values are 3 for Eddystone, 1 for iBeacon, or 5 for AltBeacon

‣ AdvertisedID • Enum (EDDYSTONE, IBEACON, ALTBEACON) • Id (String) - the UUID being broadcast by the Beacon

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Google proximity ecosystemGetting wired-in to wider ecosystem

Proximity Beacon API

Eddystone

Hardware

Nearby Message API

Places API

Chrome iOS Widget

More flexible and extensible than

iBeacon == developer friendly

Cloud based management for

Beacons and metadata

Eddystone proving attractive to many

Beacon manufacturers

On iOS, the Today Chrome

widget now scans for Beacons

Subscribe to messages attached to Beacons

Can register PlaceID with Beacons -

acts as signal to Places API

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Proxbook is a service provided by UnacastProxbook is a service provided by Unacast

BEACON STANDARDS

Google Eddystone catching up to Apples iBeacon

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POPULARITY OF DIFFERENT BEACON STANDARDS% of total Proxbook members supporting a beacon standard

Q4 2015 Q1 2016Q3 2015Q2 2015 Q2 2016 Q3 2016

49%55%

45%

5%

25%

38%

96%90%

96% 93% 90% 89%

The most recent beacon protocol to launch is Eddystone by Google. By using Eddystone you can trigger both URL’s in browsers on smartphones as well as notifications in mobile apps, and it is supported on iOS and Android. More and more proximity companies are adding Eddystone support into their product portfolios, and Google is strengthening it’s position in the beacon standard competition each quarter.

iBeacon is the beacon protocol made by Apple. iBeacon can trigger notifications within mobile apps and is natively supported on iOS. Apple has been quiet since the release of iBeacon in 2013. However, a new Apple device has just passed through the FCC and it will come with both Bluetooth and NFC. They also recently removed the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, putting more emphasis on Bluetooth.

Could this be Apple’s way of forcing the market to adapt to Bluetooth before releasing the new iBeacon 2.0?

As of Q3 more than half of the proximity industry is using Google Eddystone.

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Beacosystem Overview

Anywhere from 60M to 300M Beacons deployed worldwide by 2018.

Currently, 1-2M, excluding Apple iOS devices.

We are here

Pure Play Hardware Companies with standalone Beacons

Marketing Automation Companies using Beacons for indoor, place-based signals

Place / Location Analytics companies using Beacons for indoor & place-based signals

Vertical Solution Provider using Beacons for features (Events, Museums, Enterprise, Real Estate)

Shopper Marketing Platforms using Beacons to trigger engagement, understand context

General Purpose Proximity Platforms offering PaaS to everyone else

Indoor Location Providers using Beacons as part of the Indoor Location arsenal

Hardware Companies with embedded Beacons (Lights, Sockets, Wearables)

Lots of different players in the Beacosystem

Ad Networks / DSPs linking to Beacon networks for re-targeting, offline to online (O2O)

Apple (iBeacon)

Google (Physical Web)

There are a few ways to group the players

Here’s one…