Google wants to compete with Apple's iBeacon

Eddystone signs Google’s entry into the Beacon market and the start of the war with Apple’s iBeacon. Google has just decided that this is the right time to unveil its own open-source format for Beacons.

Eddystone works with all kinds of devices, not just Android phones. These are small Bluetooth beacons that can broadcast location information from your phone. They have long been at the heart of intoxicating promises: such as a store that would inform you of sales.

To date, the widest implementation of these tags has been achieved by Apple’s iBeacon technology. The biggest differentiator between Eddystone and iBeacon is how the former works with both Android and iOS. Eddystone also allows tags to change their unique identifiers; which makes them safer.

To make it easier to get started, Google has obviously presented open APIs and will update all of its mobile services to make them compatible with this technology. Thanks to the platform imagined by Google, it will be possible to manage entire fleets of Beacons tags and configure their functions.

With their location functionality, Beacons therefore ask a few questions regarding privacy and confidentiality. For example, last year BuzzFeed discovered that 500 beacons had been installed in New York City payphones without anyone knowing about it. It then turned out that they were installed there to send commercial offers related to the Tribeca film festival.

So how is Google going to deal with these concerns? It’s worth noting that Google intends to be an open-source, a large ecosystem, not just a way to get a little more involved in your digital life. The company says it intends to use these tags to send relevant information based on your location.

Here is the ehealth presentation from Google giving some examples of the use of Eddystone technology:

(embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-4J7cijPAo (/ embed)

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AB SMART HEALTH REVIEW