Let's Talk About Beacons • Hacker News Board

Re: Let's Talk About Beacons

#91

Post by saeguaiga » Wed, Nov 05, 2014, 5:58 PM UTC

achivetta wrote: post #7

amelius wrote: post #6

Carry a beacon (or a bunch of them) with you into a shop and the store will recognize you the next time you enter. That's handy! It's like a cookie that you physically bring every time. ~ Or, in other words, no thanks.

Who is suggesting that users would carry beacons?

Only the specialized economists who suggest people would ever need to have signs, surely. Also, the rare restaurant that wants to garner advocates. Then perhaps amateur entomologists. Works engineers who want to know when something erodes would surely bury fiber optics rather than a RFID or battery device with 30 year lifetime.

Re: Let's Talk About Beacons

#92

Post by vegedor » Wed, Nov 05, 2014, 6:02 PM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #38

I don't know why everyone is talking about pushing ads in the first place, whenever BLE beacons come up. As if the visual clutter created by outdoor advertisement wasn't enough, now I'll get garbage on my phone? No, thanks. Really, No Thanks . As the article mentions, it's not obvious what value iBeacons provide compared to direct audio/visual information. For the same reason QR codes never took off. Ever since QR ca…

>I haven't seen a single person who'd voluntarily scan a code (or an NFC label for that matter) in the street, anywhere in the world

Post-men do it all the time.

>Maybe the problem is that iBeacons are a bit too passive/static. But even a full BLE device that can transmit a bit more complex information is still debatble in terms of value

You are missing the point, too. I guess, the value of iBeacon is in reception, not transmission, as is also said about RFID terminals, while it still may have some other use.

Re: Let's Talk About Beacons

#93

Post by saeguaiga » Wed, Nov 05, 2014, 7:22 PM UTC

bennyg wrote: post #54

chrisBob wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a specific reason for the coin cell batteries? I would be much happier paying the same amount for something that looks like a AA battery and will last a few years.

I think it's size. Most beacon companies are doing what the phone companies are doing - slimming everything down.

Batteries last 5 years in very dry packages under 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but this might be a nice place to mention new coats for batteries; PD&D Magazine mentions them as cutting the electrical damage bit out of the swallowed batteries risk. Then I would ask about the naivety of supercaps, now with catastrophic conversion -over- 110 degrees Celsius (or when ingested, I suppose.)

Re: Let's Talk About Beacons

#94

Post by saeguaiga » Wed, Nov 05, 2014, 7:40 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #87

swamp40 wrote: post #2

> * In fact, referring to these devices as just “Beacons” is a bit funny, considering no one was talking about Beacons before iBeacons existed.* Well...I recall unpaired advertising events in the Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy Spec back in 2010 - way before Apple ever got involved.

Around 2003/2004 a local magazine called NAG ( http://www.nag.co.za/ ) had an opinion piece at the end in which the author theorized using beacons for an inverse purpose: attach Bluetooth fobs/beacons to your keys and then triangulate given how your phone scales the signal strength of the BT signal. IIRC it would have only worked with Nokias because no other brand implemented this Bluetooth power consumption optimiza…

The handheld phone is moving, the accelerometers track it, it's no problem; since beacons happen only every 10s, you should make kale juice and do stretches then look, or wait for the drone to spam light near them (because they're still black keys.) It's not an instant joy and the antenna gain to make it so...

Re: Let's Talk About Beacons

#95

Post by mojuba » Wed, Nov 05, 2014, 8:10 PM UTC

vegedor wrote: post #92

mojuba wrote: post #38

I don't know why everyone is talking about pushing ads in the first place, whenever BLE beacons come up. As if the visual clutter created by outdoor advertisement wasn't enough, now I'll get garbage on my phone? No, thanks. Really, No Thanks . As the article mentions, it's not obvious what value iBeacons provide compared to direct audio/visual information. For the same reason QR codes never took off. Ever since QR ca…

> I haven't seen a single person who'd voluntarily scan a code (or an NFC label for that matter) in the street, anywhere in the world Post-men do it all the time. >Maybe the problem is that iBeacons are a bit too passive/static. But even a full BLE device that can transmit a bit more complex information is still debatble in terms of value You are missing the point, too. I guess, the value of iBeacon is in reception,…

Post-men don't do it "voluntarily", by which I mean e.g. out of curiosity, whereas the purpose of advertisement QR codes is just that. "Wow, look an advertisement QR code, I should definitely scan it and see what they are offering!". Really?

Re: Let's Talk About Beacons

#96

Post by m_eiman » Wed, Nov 05, 2014, 8:24 PM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #50

m_eiman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

despite the hype BLE turns out to be a niche technology with poor capabilities and questionable benefits. While I agree that beacons are over-hyped, I think it's worth pointing out that BLE does other things that I think are more useful. Being able to talk to devices without having to perform the awkward pairing process, for example.

Pairing is an equivalent of connecting devices with a physical wire. When you stream music you want to know exactly where it goes, or e.g. which BT headset is connected to which phone in the room. Pairing can be combined with connecting in a lot of situations though, and I believe the Bluetooth standard, as well as implementations are moving towards simplification. For example, I'd rather have a list of BT audio spea…

Using un-paired BLE devices you can do things such as adhoc mesh networking, which isn't possible with "old" Bluetooth. That's kind of cool, and possibly useful.

I agree that general Bluetooth usability could be improved - having to switch to an OS-provided, generic "add device" wizard before being able to use any Bluetooth device is just UX murder.