Steven Osborn

iBeacon

Steven Osborn

Co-founded Urban Airship 5 years ago.Co-founded Smart Mocha with Surj and Jake OlsenStarted Thing Tuesday (Surj does all the driving now, Thanks Surj!)Authored Makers at Work , Apress 2013

steven@urbanairship.com @steve918

What is an iBeacon?

iBeacons

Indoor location triggers

Indoor triggers

Incentives / Coupon (Sign spinner)Indoor directions / navigationCustomer greeting (Hotel)Occupancy management (Stadium)Enter, Exit, Historical

Location context

Bluetooth LE

iBeacons are BLE devices

Bluetooth Low Energy (LE)Bluetooth SmartBluetooth 4.0

BLE Devices

Lots of new devices

iBeacons

It’s all about the logo

BLE Beacons

Not all beacons are iBeacons

Key Players

Radius Networks

Redbear Labs

Estimote

Gimbal

Motorola

Paypal

GE iBeacon integration

Everyday devices as iBeacons

Chip Makers

Texas Instruments

CC254X

Nordic Semiconductor

nRF51822, nRF51422, nRF8001, nRF8002

Concerns

1

ManagementWho is responsible when stuff doesn’t work

2 3 4 5

Management

iBeacon management

Thousands of hardware devicesHundreds/thousands of storesProvisioningMonitoringMaintenanceBatteries!

1

PrivacyBig brother is watching

2 3 4 5

Privacy

User tracking

Opt-InLocation requires opt-in

iBeacons are transmitting, your device listens You track iBeacons, they don’t track you.

MAC rotation

1

Battery LifeGot juice?

32 4 5

Battery Life

Can’t pull power out of the air (yet)

iBeacon spec says to transmit every 100msSo much for coin cell batteries

USB beaconsHow to know when one diesHuge cost to roll a truck to replace batteriesAlso has some burden on phone battery

1

SecurityI see what you did there

42 3 5

Security

Haxx

BLE is inherently insecureiBeacon does not provide

EncryptionAuthenticationAuthorizationAssurance a user is actually at a location

Easily spoofableEasily detected by competitionInsecure channel

Roll your own encryption if you need it

1

AdoptionIt’s Apple’s baby, but does anyone want it?

52 3 4

Adoption

Many people are rolling out their own, non-iBeacon BLE beaconsAndroid doesn’t support it out of the box. Hasn’t announced plans too.

Apples and Oranges

What do Consumer's think?

Consumers response

It’s all about appropriate context

Good Push Index

Urban Airship

Proper / Improper uses of notificationsReal world customer response

Open Beacons

Open Beacons

www.openbeacons.com

Open Beacons

Open HardwareOpen FirmwareIncreased securityOTA firmwareSpoof resistant

Rotating UUIDiBeacon compatibility

Goals

Thanks!