Eddystone™ is an open beacon protocol from Google, which allows Bluetooth Low Energy devices to broadcast data across short distances to a receiver. The main advantages of this protocol over the rest of the existing ones is that it allows you to set and send four different advertising packets (frame types):
- Eddystone-UID: equivalent to the well-known iBeacon advertising packet, with a specific ID to trigger actions in your app.
- Eddystone-URL: this beacon frame sends an URL directly to the air. By doing that, any Google Chrome user (only in iOS at the moment) can click on the notification bar to see what beacons are around them and interact without the need of any specific app (physical web app may be needed in Android devices). For example, a small bakery could use a beacon to send its website directly to the air without creating an app that the client is forced to download.
- Eddystone-TLM (Telemetry): most of you have been asking for different sensors to be put on the beacon to create disruptive use cases. Now, all this contextual information could be reported through this third advertising packet available. The perfect way to monitor your deployments in terms of battery, temperature, working time, etc.
- Eddystone-EID: this frame allows beacons to broadcast encrypted and rotating IDs, preventing the risk of being tracked or controlled by malicious third parties.
Eddystone™ is officially supported on both operating systems.