What Does Google’s UriBeacon Mean for Apple’s iBeacon?

In similarly ‘quiet’ fashion to the iBeacon launch, Google recently announced through GitHub their entrance into the beacon space as part of their Physical Web project. While they have been quick to distance themselves from this initiative as being an officially backed ‘Google project’, there is no doubt this new protocol gives us a look at Google’s direction into the emerging beacon space.

What is UriBeacon?

Developers working on the project have created an open standard called UriBeacon which operates in a similar fashion to Apple’s iBeacon protocol. However, rather than emitting a UUID as we see with iBeacon, the UriBeacon protocol uses BLE to transmit a basic URL or short weblink that can be detected by nearby mobile devices. This “link” can then drive a user to a web page that corresponds to content associated with that beacon. A simple example would be a Coca Cola vending machine, with a beacon emitting the URL of a contest on the Coke website, prompting the user to click the link to enter the contest.

These URL emitting beacons can be detected by using a mobile app configured to detect nearby UriBeacons. Users of these apps can choose to either receive notifications when they come in range of beacons operating under the UriBeacon protocol (similar to iBeacon) or, choose to scan for beacons when they desire to see those that are within range.

The benefit with this approach is that one app intended to detect UriBeacons can serve all beacons regardless of what brand, or owner they are associated with. This is of course different from the iBeacon requirement that a specific iBeacon UUID be tied to a corresponding app. This approach suggests that Apple seems to be going for a more native, in-app beacon experience. While the URI beacon approach will serve a wider audience, by engaging users with content in a web-based form.

While the web-based approach associated with UriBeacon may offer an inferior user experience to that of a native app, it does provide a solution for different beacon use cases such as engaging with retailers and brands to small too have their own app, or for more one-off situations such as checking when the next bus will arrive at a stop.

The question then becomes less about a competition between the two protocols and more about developers and brands choosing the right technology to fit the use case. At the end of the day, existing native apps need to deliver more contextually relevant content than they do today, but do users really need an app for EVERY potential beacon use case?

Time will tell as these two technologies start to mature. One thing is clear, in less than a year and a half, beacon has gone from obscurity, to one of the most talked about topics in the IOT and the future of Mobile.

[Update] Since the launch of the UriBeacon project google has made significant advancements to their beacon efforts, arguably surpassing Apple in the beacon space. Learn more about some of those major updates here.