As of December 6th, this service will disappear to avoid being a source of irrelevant information and spam.
Google has announced the Nearby Notifications service will no longer be operational on December 6, 2018. The technology was launched in 2015 with the aim of “bringing relevant and engaging content to users – to provide useful information proactively”, according to Ritesh Nayak M, Product Manager of the company, in a statement announcing the interruption.
Why is Nearby Notifications Ending?
Nearby Notifications were designed to help users with relevant and valuable information. For example, by sending a link to a guide during a museum visit, or a bus schedule when you arrive at a shop. The reality, however, has been different; especially last year: “We noticed a significant increase in locally irrelevant and spammy notifications that were leading to a poor user experience”, says Nayak.
The quality of information sent through this Google service is difficult to control, so the company decided to finalize it: “We will stop serving Nearby Notifications on December 6th, 2018”.
How will this decision affect developers who use Nearby Notifications?
All developers who are currently offering push notifications through Nearby Notifications must change the way they send this valuable information to their customers or users. Since there is no alternative system with the same functionality, there is no automatic way to redirect all the information that is currently being sent through this technology.
What are the alternatives to Nearby Notifications?
There is no service with the same benefits as Nearby Notifications. Developers “will continue to have access to the beacon dashboard”, but to be able to offer proximity experiences similar to those offered with the nearby notifications, it will be strictly necessary the existence of an application.
This application can use different APIs to access the information stored on Google platform.
Proximity Beacon API
It’s an API that allows developers to connect to Google platform from its own applications, to be able to register its Bluetooth beacons and consult which devices are part of its project.
Messages API
With this API, developer’s app will be able to connect to Google platform to catch all the information about the beacons around them, and thus show it in their interface.
