Feb 06, 2015Technology startup Blesh is offering beacons and a content-management systems (CMS) software development kit (SDK) to be used as part of a public project being undertaken with Google, known as the Physical Web (PW). Blesh is selling the beacons bundled with the SDK to give individuals a head-start on developing mobile apps and wearable or Internet of Things (IoT) technology for the PW technology that Google plans to integrate in its Android- and Chrome-based phones. When they finally become commercially available, PW-enabled devices will have the ability to read the beacons without requiring an app.
Google declined to comment for this story, indicating that it would make formal announcements once the system moves into full commercial release—that is, when it has Physical Web technology built into its phones. Until then, Blesh is offering the SDK, battery-powered beacons and a smartphone app for configuring its beacons, while Google employee Scott Jenson is promoting the Physical Web at the GitHub website, and is directing interested developers to contact Blesh to purchase the kit.
Google intends the Physical Web to serve as an alternative to most existing beacon systems, which require that consumers download an app designed for a specific beacon deployment. Once the Physical Web is up and running, a consumer could simply bring a phone within range of a Blesh beacon at any public location, such as on a vending machine, smart poster or rental car, or on a toy. That individual would then be sent directly to a website.
Blesh, which operates headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey, and an office in Palo Alto, Calif., was launched in 2012 to provide mobile technology solutions in which individuals received location-based content via Bluetooth-based micro-locating technology. This, says Ugur Gokdere, Blesh's CTO, was before Apple released its iBeacon Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) functionality in its iOS 7 system in 2013.
"We were trying to convince brands there is a wireless technology [they could use] that had no name," Gokdere explains. After Apple introduced the iBeacon, he says, "things became much easier."
The company opted to serve as a full mobile technology solution provider, rather than a hardware company that only sold beacons, explains Devrim Sonmez, Blesh's CEO and co-founder. For its existing customers—which are currently only in Turkey—it offers a fully hosted solution. "Existing customers of our iBeacon platform are currently in Turkey," Sonmez states. "Blesh Physical Web beacons, on the other hand, have been shipped to over 30 countries, with most of the developers who purchased them being in the U.S."
With its full solution, Blesh installs its own beacons where they are needed to create a network for its client, such as a retailer or a restaurant, and then services and manages those beacons itself. The client would provide customers with its own app, using Blesh's CMS SDK to enable that app to use the beacon data. With this model, a user pays only for the beacon-based data, and Blesh manages the beacons themselves, such as ensuring that they are operating correctly and changing batteries when necessary.
In addition, Blesh allows multiple users to employ a single beacon. For instance, a company such as Yelp may want the location-based functionality for its app users, while a coffee shop at that same spot could use it as well with its own app—for instance, to invite consumers into the shop by offering them discounts or other promotions. Individuals would then receive data based on which app they had downloaded on their phones. Once the Physical Web is installed in public places, a consumer's phone will not receive push notifications; instead, it will initiate the interaction by searching for content provided by any beacons that it detects within the vicinity.
A PW beacon is known as a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Beacon (or UriBeacon for short). An example of a URI is a URL for a website to which a beacon would direct an individual's phone. During the past several months, Google has been inviting its customers—who are typically developers—to purchase the beacons and developer kits from Blesh, so that they can acquaint themselves with the technology via the GitHub website.
"People should be able to walk up to any smart device—a vending machine, a poster, a toy, a bus stop, a rental car—and not have to download an app first," Jenson indicates at the GitHub site. "Everything should be just a tap away." Google is poised to make that possible by performing its own coding to make Android-based phones capable of receiving a beacon transmission without requiring an app. Without the app, however, the data must be very basic—and that would typically be a website's URL. In that way, Gokdere says, the beacons could be ubiquitous. For example, a beacon could be attached to a vending machine, and users could receive a notice that a beacon transmission has been received, and then opt to either ignore the transmission or have their phones visit that URL. For those who choose the latter option, their phones will access and display information indicating what is in the vending machine, or offer a method of paying for the product wirelessly.
The same technology would work within an environment such as a rental car agency, with beacons attached to cars so that customers could be directed to the website, select the vehicle they want, make a payment and gain access to the car.
With the CMS developers kit, the battery-powered beacon can be configured and linked to a website, using Blesh's app (available at Google Play and iTunes). Alternatively, developers can choose any other configuration, such as developing an app for use with the beacon data.
The beacon technology offers a more convenient alternative to QR codes and Near Field Communication (NFC) tags, Gokdere says, since both of the latter technologies require a consumer to take out his or her phone and scan or read a tag, whereas beacons can receive a transmission without leaving a user's pocket. If multiple beacons are in the area, all beacon-based data could be viewed in the form of multiple URLs. A user could then decide which of the URLs, if any, were of interest. In the first month since Blesh began offering its PW kits, Gokdere says, the company has sold approximately 250 boxes—each with three beacons and the CMS SDK, and costing $50—to developers in the United States. It has also sold an additional 150 kits to those in other parts of the world.
To date, however, the majority of Blesh's customers are located in Turkey. Thus far, Gokdere reports, the company has deployed about 4,000 beacons for a total of 15 applications, with 10 million downloads of Blesh-based apps. Those customers include Turkish banks such as DenizBank and Garanti Bank; retailer Migros; mobile phone company Samsung; and a local Shake Shack restaurant.
