Today at Google IO session, Ben Galbraith, Product Management Director, Firebase, Google announced a new feature for Firebase for developers, Its a service which helps developers to build Android, iOS, and web apps.
Now, Phone Number authentication comes to Firebase!!
This has been a most requested feature from Firebase developer community to authenticate their customers. As we all know, there are certain platforms which are also providing this service.
Last year in December 2016, Facebook came with same kinda platform to make authentication process more seamless and easy for the customers. They launched Account Kit which allows developers to authenticate phone number. This is how it works
Instant verification is the result of trying to streamline the login process and rely less on SMS for those signing in with their phone number. When a person enters his/her phone number into an app using Account Kit, via Android services, we attempt a match with the verified phone number listed on the person’s Facebook profile. This is only possible if the person is logged into the Facebook app on the same device. If there is a match, we can complete the verification without sending a one-time password (OTP) via SMS, making the sign-in flow more seamless. If there isn’t a successful match, a SMS will be sent with a verification code to complete the sign-in. This feature is used only to improve the verification process in a secure way and no additional Facebook information is shared with the app.
This makes sense to me!! Avoid sending OTP in case of entered phone number and phone number listed on the person Facebook is matched.
To make it easy for developers using Account Kit, we will not institute any SMS charges through August 2018. At that point, standard SMS rates may apply for apps exceeding 100,000 SMS confirmation messages per month. For FbStart apps, our program for early-stage mobile startups, we will not institute any Account Kit SMS charges indefinitely. Learn how to apply by going to the FbStart application page.
Alright! Google acquired Fabric in Jan 2017, they worked with them closely to bring phone number auth feature in Firebase platform. As I don’t see any limit on number of SMS per month and it is completely free!!. Nevertheless, To avoid spamming Firebase enforces a limit on the number of SMS messages that can be sent to a single phone number within a period of time.
So far, so good! We will go through implementation of phone number authentication using Firebase in my next story.
Please, if you find something to improve or any suggestion, don’t hesitate to contact me, I’ll try to do my best to answer any question or improve this tutorial.
See you in next story!
