Ever since QR came into existence 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.Ĭlearly iBeacons/QR/NFC are not interesting in terms of providing information "on the spot", let alone advertisement. For the same reason QR codes never took off. Really, No Thanks.Īs the article mentions, it's not obvious what value iBeacons provide compared to direct audio/visual information. As if the visual clutter created by outdoor advertisement wasn't enough, now I'll get garbage on my phone? No, thanks. I don't know why everyone is talking about pushing ads in the first place, whenever BLE beacons come up. ![]() I'm excited to see where Estimote takes beacons though, since they seem to be doing the most R&D type pushes with this technology compared to the other manufacturers. Obviously at 10,000 beacons we're talking enterprise pricing, but even if you were to get that to around $5 that's still too much for what's essentially a CR2032 battery and a tiny radio chip. Even then, for $30/beacon I can get ones that run off the wall circuit and last until that's off (for all intents and purposes, longer than 5 years). I also found that almost all clients scoff at ~$33/beacon when you're pitching something in the 10,000 beacon range. I don't mean to bash your company at all here, so I'm sorry if this comes off that way. I was excited when I saw your indoor SDK, but it's too simplistic and not realistic enough for the production apps we have and are building (walking around and mapping every single room in a hospital is untenable). All 3 Estimote beacons are dead, and they all died around the same time (one in super conservative mode, one in what should be a normal use case, and then one in max power mode). The beacons my company received from you guys must have been out of the norm then. Hold the phone between you and the beacon and get a decent signal, then turn 180 degrees so that you are between the phone and the beacon. But they die too quickly, and don't provide granular signal data. And that's only because they don't have batteries. The only beacons that don't are RadBeacons USB sticks that plug into wall outlets. Did I mention power yet? All of the beacons we started with around 9 months ago have dead batteries. Using beacons for granular location-aware uses might as well go out the window if you're looking for accurate and precise readings around ~1-3ft. Speaking of indoor navigation, you need a ton of points to do it well (whether that's beacons or wifi routers, you decide). I recommend as the only solution that got close to what we needed (though it's still pretty darn immature). Indoor navigation that relies on iBeacons only is going to shoot you in the foot. Nobody likes things they didn't ask for getting sent to their phone. Estimated battery life was estimated very poorly. Some of my findings over the last 9 months: The solid green light tells you that the beacon is currently being configured via our mobile app, while the continuous green flash tells you that the beacon is in configurable mode and can be configured via our mobile app.As an iOS developer who has spent the last 9 months making beacon enabled things for my employer, I personally think beacons are shit. Once it is paired to a mobile device for configuration via our configuration app, the green flash changes to a solid green light until the X4 is no longer paired with the device for configuration. Note: When your X4 is in configurable mode, it will start to FLASH GREEN. When you have finished configuring your beacon, you can exit CONFIGURABLE mode and return to ON mode by pressing the blue button on the beacon once so that you see a SINGLE GREEN FLASH.Using the RadBeacon app for iOS, Android or OS X, scan for configurable beacons and follow the instructions for selecting and configuring your beacon, which can be found at this link.The CONFIGURABLE state will last about 10 minutes, if you ever need to restart that window for any reason, just push the blue button inside the case.This indicates it's in the CONFIGURABLE state and you can find it in RadBeacon. Once you've inserted 2 of the 4 AA batteries (included) the device will start to FLASH GREEN.When the batteries are in it will be in the ON mode and it will not exit the ON state until the batteries are removed or die.CONFIGURABLE - Beacon is discoverable and connectable by a valid configuration app like RadBeacon for iOS, Android or OS X.ON - Proximity advertisements are being transmitted.OFF - No advertisements are being transmitted. ![]() The RadBeacon X4 beacon has several operating modes.
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