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Comment by skierscott | Hacker News Reader

With greater range. NFC has a practical range of about 4cm; iBeacon has a range of about 10-20m.

Ah, then it must be Bluetooth Low Energy.

Correct, it's also not based on RFID like NFC is, and so can in theory be used for a whole lot more.

There are lots of cool things, easiest way to get started on the peripheral side is to buy a TI Dev kit "Cow Bell" http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2541dk-sensor?DCMP=blestack_ota&HQS... , its pretty cool. Temperature sensor, Magnetometer, Humidity, Pressure etc. you will have to flash it to support HID instead of GATT.

This is awesome! I've been looking for something like this for a while, thanks a lot for the tip.

With just the rough description I've seen I'm almost certain that it's just devices supporting the Low Energy Proximity profile.

it is BLE or BlueTooth 4 ( same thing) , small difference is that iOS supports a HID over the more standard Gatt profile . Ultimately the end the BLE 'beacon' - 'bug' - 'responder' device is likely a TI CC2540 chip or similar mfg ( I think there is another swedish mfg that provides a similar system )

Just a nit, but BLE and Bluetooth 4 are not the same thing. The Bluetooth SIG has made complete mess of the situation. The Bluetooth 4 specification defines both BLE and Bluetooth "Classic" which use different radios. You can label something Bluetooth 4 when implementing only one of the modes or both.

The marks you need to look for are Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth Smart Ready. Bluetooth Smart is reserved for devices that only implement the BLE radio and this is what you'll see on things like FitBits, etc. The Bluetooth Smart Ready is reserved for devices that implement both Bluetooth Classic and BLE. The iPhone 4S+ is Smart Ready, Android 4.3 will be Smart Ready, etc.

Like I said, a complete branding disaster.

Leave it to an industry SIG. USB hi-speed vs. full speed all over again.

What's the solution to these expected failures in branding and their impact on us consumers?

It has already bit Nike in the butt when people flipped out when they said they weren't going to support Android with the Fuel Band. The reasons were completely technical, but consumers assumed it was because Nike was some how saying Android was inferior. Of course, trying to communicate this in a tweet also makes the problem even worse.

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