I'm a little surprised that there isn't broader availability of iBeacons at this stage... I feel I should be able to walk into an Apple store and buy a 10-pack of them for some reasonable price.
Sure the geofence triggering is kinda cool, but I've yet to see a practical use of it. Seems like "interactive museum tour" is the thing everyone keeps coming back to. If this is what Apple wanted to do with iBeacons, they would be selling them for a couple bucks in Apple Stores. But iBeacons aren't a consumer device. I think much more likely to see "iBeacon ready" hardware sold by Apple and other 3rd parties.
I think iBeacon protocol will become part of other devices, as a way to add proximity detection for the iPhone/apps that could interact with that device.
How about a DSLR camera that I can pair with by touching my iPhone to it? Creating ad-hoc multi-peer networks between devices by being near them. Play a game on your phone on a nearby TV without connecting to same WiFi. Or wearables knowing which other wearables are nearby. This kind of natural, "magical" interaction is very Apple.
Isn't it what NFC is for ? Except for Apple stubbornly deciding not to add it to the iPhone ?
http://www.radiusnetworks.com/
I really love the USB powered model, especially for something like PunchClock. No batteries means no dead batteries.
http://store.radiusnetworks.com/products/radbeacon-usb
We also released a number of open source projects that can help with projects like this. Including the ibeacon cli (if you are on a mac just `brew install ibeacon`), or if you want more than iOS check out the Android iBeacon Library (https://github.com/RadiusNetworks/android-ibeacon-service).
Sorry for the shameless plug!
My experience so far has been pretty good using their SDK (which works on iOS and Android) and their admin web interface, and the Gimbal devices themselves are not that expensive.
I'd be interested to hear the experiences of others using Gimbal..
* "ok" price
* horrible customer communication
* in reality to want to sell you their services and not the iBeacons.
* not configurable (proximity id, major, minor)
* really long shipping time to europe (4 weeks)
* "ok" price
* nice form factor (small)
* not really iBeacon compatible. They say you can flash their beacons to make them compatible, but i haven't found out how since their support is not responding.
* not configurable (proximity id, major, minor)
* good price
* great support
* major, minor configurable. proximity id not
* form factor kinda bulky
* they seem to be able to deliver huge amount of beacons
* great price
* great support
* nice form factor (same as stickNFind)
* fully configurable (proximity id, major, minor)
* the company is relatively young
Can't say anything about the battery life yet, but the batteries were replaceable in each case.
Best, Pieter
http://www.getgelo.com/beacons/
(Disclaimer : I work with the organization.)