Fun With iBeacon

Been doing some iBeacon dev and deployments for about 8 months. The estimote hardware is just outrageously expensive compared to what you can source from China with little effort. As in, 3-4x the cost. If you're just doing simple BTLE proximity I don't know why you'd need a $30 beacon (I guess they have some other sensors built into their beacon as well?)...if you're making a toy, fine, but if your intent is to deploy thousands (or even dozens, really) of beacons it just doesn't make any sense. I suspect in a year's time generic hardware will be had at < 1/10th the price of an estimote.

Great to see some more public development around the iBeacon. Yesterday, Panic, showed us their project for a &quot;punch clock&quot; system: <a href="http://www.panic.com/blog/punchclock-fun-with-ibeacons/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.panic.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;punchclock-fun-with-ibeacons&#x2F;</a><p>I am very excited to see where this development proceeds. The usefulness is somewhat like geofencing but for smaller areas and much more accurate since the range of the iBeacon is so small (vs GPS).

I recently read an article about a university using iBeacons to help fans navigate their way around stadiums, among other things. The possibilities for stuff like this are just really cool.<p><a href="http://msbusiness.com/blog/2014/07/08/ole-miss-offering-new-system-sports-fans/#utm_source=WhatCounts+Publicaster+Edition&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=MBJ+E-Bulletin+%e2%80%94+Cruz+backs+runoff+investigation%3b+tea+party+group+calls+Cochran+%27scum%27&amp;utm_content=Ole+Miss+offering+new+beacon+technology+for+sports+fans" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;msbusiness.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2014&#x2F;07&#x2F;08&#x2F;ole-miss-offering-new-...</a>

For Android people, there&#x27;s a very good library here: <a href="http://developer.radiusnetworks.com/ibeacon/android/index.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.radiusnetworks.com&#x2F;ibeacon&#x2F;android&#x2F;index.ht...</a><p>And here is an example of using it on Google Glass to trigger various experiences at Airport beacons like parking, security, and checkout that I wrote for a hackathon: <a href="https://github.com/lnanek/WearableTraveler" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;lnanek&#x2F;WearableTraveler</a><p>Some of the American Airlines employees at the event mentioned installing hundreds of iBeacon in a terminal, so you can expect them to actually be out in the wild.

So, if I build something using iBeacon, what do I for android users, laugh?

I think it&#x27;s important (for everyone) to clarify that Beacon DevPacks (typically 3 Beacons, SDK, etc.) are different to Beacon Production Orders (I&#x27;d like 2000 beacons for my set of stores). Pricing for the former is generally around $20 or so per beacon, while the 1000&#x27;s tend to drop off rapidly. Just my 2 cents. (Sean @localsocial)

Interesting discussion. If you&#x27;re looking for a software platform that sits over your hardware you should check out Lighthouse: <a href="http://lighthousebeacon.com.au/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lighthousebeacon.com.au&#x2F;</a> - allows you to control content delivery and includes advanced analytics.

we use these primarily but have used others including estimote since 2013...<p><a href="https://www.gimbal.com/gimbal-proximity-beacons" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gimbal.com&#x2F;gimbal-proximity-beacons</a><p>less than 5 dollars each for series 10 and a security model that folks should seriously look into IMO...or u can use iBeacon configuration.<p>Originally by Qualcomm so u know the hardware is solid.

Does this only work from an iOS test device? Not from the simulator?

Does Apple sell any transmitters?