Google Eddystone: How It Will Change Mobile Apps in the Future
By Madhu Madhusudhanan
Google recently announced Eddystone, an open source platform for Bluetooth LE devices. It is seen as the answer to Apple’s iBeacon—but it is much more than that.
First, let’s look at the similarities. Both are Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocols and they provide a real-world context to apps. That is where the similarities end.
Real-world Context
Imagine you are going to Vegas for a conference. You arrive at the conference and you are checked in automatically and they are already aware of your preferences before your arrival. You are walking past a restaurant in your hotel and your phone pulls up their menu and their specials of the day without having to seek out their website.
Since the announcement of iBeacon and recent improvements in geo-fencing technology, developers have been trying to make their apps context aware to provide a better experience. However, there are still many limitations—especially in the fast moving world of the interconnected Internet of Things (IOT).
The Simpler, The Better
In the world of IOT, a cappuccino machine can be operated by an app, but in order to get the coffee, you first need to have the app pre-installed, then you have to unlock your phone and launch the app, and find the appropriate menu to make coffee. This is inefficient because the app is supposed to lessen the amount of steps you take in making the coffee, not increase them. At this point, most people choose to use the buttons on the cappuccino machine instead of the app to make their coffee. This kind of friction is more common with most IOT today.
Eddystone: The Solution
Now consider the same cappuccino machine, but this time you walk up to the machine, the machine pushes a screen to your smartphone with options that is customized to your preference, one tap and your coffee is ready to enjoy. This is a more powerful experience. Thanks to Google Eddystone and Physical Web project, this will soon be a reality.
How It Works
Both iBeacons and Eddystone are designed to transmit unique advertising packets that act as an identifier for a location or objects. However, Eddystone is open protocol and its specifications are available for everyone and there are significant differences in the advertising packets compared to iBeacons. In addition, Eddystone offers multiple packet types and this is a big deal.
Eddystone – UID: This contains 16-byte identifier of the beacon and is split into two parts. Namespace to configure SH-1 hash of your domain name, and Instance to differentiate your beacons.
Eddystone – URL: This is a concept taken from Physical Web, Data (~1K) can be encoded directly in the beacon’s advertising packet. This means that the users can access content without having the appropriate app installed, and the data can be URL, JSON, plain text, etc.
Eddystone – TLM (Telemetry): This packet provides health status of the beacons like battery life for systems that manages the fleet of beacons.
Great, but How Does It Change the Apps?
Most people only use a handful of apps daily and the rest are dormant in your phone until the right time (e.g. parking meter app, IOT related apps, etc.). The concept of Physical Web is to remove the need for such apps altogether. The content is served to you exactly when you need it. When you are in front of parking meter, relevant options show up on your phone and the same will be true for most IOT. You no longer have to update the app, search through the menu to find the right option—and the best feature of all—you don’t have to download the app.
Finally, this is still an early prototype. Although Eddystone is supported by both iOS and Android, today you still need to use an app as there is no OS level support. However, as an open source system, it is bound to get better after the experimental stage. The hope is that it will be built into all smartphones and smart devices and when that happens the way we interact with the real world will change and open a whole new set of possibilities.
