How the 49ers Are Using Beacons to Help You Find Hot Dogs and Beer | Hacker News Reader

How the 49ers Are Using Beacons to Help You Find Hot Dogs and Beer

techcrunch.com

37 pointsturoczy20 comments

Can anyone with a little more knowledge about either iBeacons or WiFi MAC Address triangulation explain how active or passive one needs to be in order to participate or opt-out of such activities? From what I understand, the iBeacons can only interact with your phone if you have a specific app installed, e.g., if you have the 49ers app installed on your phone and you have Bluetooth enabled, it listens in the background for iBeacon broadcasts and might show you the corresponding push notification that it has downloaded when you get within range of iBeacon x. At the same time, the venue can determine your location accurately down to the spacing of the beacons. What happens if you have Bluetooth enabled (but not visible) but not a venue sponsored app? Are iBeacons (or similar Bluetooth beacons) capable of mapping these users? I presume that no push notifications could occur in this case.

As for WiFi triangulation, my limited understanding is that it relies on users walking around with WiFi kept on. Can push notifications occur even if the user doesn't connect to the venue's WiFi but has a sponsored app? Is a phone's active search for familiar SSIDs enough for venue hotspots to observe the movement of MAC addresses/phones? What about a phone without a sponsored app and WiFi enabled but not connected? (I think this is the 'sunsetted' tech mentioned in the article.)

Thanks.

According to http://nfarina.com/post/101309491728/lets-talk-about-beacons , all iBeacons do is broadcast over bluetooth a unique id, which your phone can read silently.

From there, specific apps installed on your phone will register to specific ids to listen to, and then can send that information off to a third party if the phone is connected to the internet.

Beacons can have storage. Unless they also have connectivity to a reach-able router they can't phone home. But they can upload logs of radios they have seen opportunistically. Your radio has to broadcast in order to "be seen."

From the comments: If only they'd use these to find the damn endzone.

I wish they'd use them to find an exit from the stadium that doesn't take two hours.. I know all new things have growing pains but all of the tech and logistics at Levi's has left me very disappointed thus far.

More disappointing than the team playing at Levi's?

I'm not commenting on the technology, but the organization itself.

They did a terrible job with that stadium. Want to know a terrible way to spend a Sunday? Staring directly into the sun watching a football game and succumbing to splitting headaches for 24 hours. They spent over $1B, they should've made the stadium a dome in that Santa Clara weather (like the stadium in Arizona) instead of positioning 75% of the crowd directly at the sun!

All the apps, beacons, and concession stand technology in the world won't keep fans in those seats during the game.

Major challenge here (at a guess) is activation. The majority of the advertising/activation will come in-situ at the stadium. But 100,000 people trying to download an app over a cell network in that kind of proximity is going to be trouble. I can't even access Twitter at Stamford Bridge in London (40,000 people).

Considering the scale of impact this kind of technology has the potential to have, I'm surprised at how little news there is out there on it. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out when the public figures out just how ubiquitous this little toys are going to be ...

Anyone have a good source for bulk beacon purchases? I need 200+ in the next 3 months.

Gimbal can should able to do that, though I would avoid their series 10 beacons if you want the battery to last more than 2 weeks. Series 20s are a bit big (a little larger than wallet sized) and use standard AA batteries (4 each) instead of something exotic.

There's also http://kontakt.io/ but they require a more exotic battery. I'm not sure about production capacity though.

There also StickNFind. They do customer sensors.

I've had the same experience with battery life on the series 10 beacons as you. Haven't tried the 20 yet. What're those like as far as general battery life goes?

To tell the truth, I don't have experience with one running dead yet. We've had a few around the office for the last 4~5 months now.

http://estimote.com/

Two Aruba Beacon stories on the front page of Hacker News in the same day?

I find beacons a novelty item outside of true targetted tracking ala York's "free" WiFi.

Now if only they could use them to find the endzone...

And closest paramedic in case of heatstroke .

This is innovation? Why would anyone waste their time developing this?

You know how you find beer and dogs at a stadium? Go walk the concourse! Follow the smell! Flag down a vendor!

What an utter waste of time and money.

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