
Facebook Bluetooth Beacons - jondot
https://www.facebook.com/business/a/facebook-bluetooth-beacons
======
m_eiman
"Designed for privacy"

Let me guess, instead of broadcasting a textual description of the location
and a Facebook URL that's visited if you click the interaction button, the
beacon contains a URL that's automatically downloaded from Facebook every time
you enter the location (presumably to download "up to date and accurate
information").

Couldn't find any details on the page though, anyone know?

~~~
IshKebab
This will work in a very similar way to iBeacons. Basically BLE beacons can
transmit 31 (or 32? I can't remember exactly) bytes of data in their
advertisements.

Apple uses that to send GUIDs which they look up in their online database.
Google uses it in their URIBeacon proof-of-concept to send URIs (but only
_really really_ short ones) that then don't depend on an online database of
IDs (or rather, it uses the DNS database).

Facebook's will use Apple's approach. The beacon transmit's your facebook
business ID. The facebook app then looks that up.

It is very unlikely that the business will receive any direct information
about physical visitors - though facebook probably give them aggregate
statistics ("150 people looked at facebook while in your shop this month"). I
think facebook's main motivation (other than making Facebook more useful) will
be to get this information for themselves so they can improve their
advertising targeting (i.e. if you've been to clothes shops, show you clothes
adverts).

It's probably not that great from a privacy point of view, but I doubt they're
doing anything really sinister.

~~~
corin_
From a privacy point of view it's pretty much taking active "checking in" and
making it automated. If you don't mind that then enable the feature in your
Facebook app. If you do mind that, then don't (though I guess there's a good
chance you're someone who doesn't have a Facebook app installed? "you" the
hypothetical reader, not specifically IshKebab)

------
pierre
Facebook just fix the biggest issue with (i)beacons today : You need to have
an app that read them install on your device to get notify. This was a show
stopper for most small business application as you will have needed the small
business app installed on your phone. Now you will just need you costumer to
have Facebook installed and they certainly do. This could revive the (i)Beacon
industry.

~~~
rogeryu
One more reason not to install the app and use the smartphone browser for
Facebook, and not Chrome if on Android, but Firefox of course. But then again,
I rarely have Bluetooth on, only at home for streaming music.

~~~
golergka
I don't quite understand; what's the reason, exactly?

~~~
rogeryu
The app uploads your contacts, and probably monitors many other things that
you don't want. Firefox won't let Facebook do this. And I prefer Firefox as
Chrome will do similar things for Google - not the contacts, but keeping
history of websites you visit etc.

~~~
antihero
I actually find both of these features to be really useful.

~~~
iLoch
It's an invasion of privacy for either you or (if you don't care) your
contacts' privacy. You're probably on the wrong forum if you don't consider
these "features" to be overreaching.

------
micheljansen
There is little mention of the technology used, but if Facebook is really
interested in the kind of openness they claim when talking about Internet.org
etc., they should adopt an open standard.

The Physical Web project ([http://google.github.io/physical-
web/](http://google.github.io/physical-web/)) aims to set up such a standard
based on existing technologies (Bluetooth, mDNS etc.), but it's being held
back by lack of browser support. If Facebook were to adopt this, it would be a
huge boost.

~~~
atonse
They're very likely using the same tech as iBeacons (which is part of
Bluetooth LE)

~~~
micheljansen
But that's the thing: the iBeacon protocol does very little to specify the
data payload, whereas Physical Web Beacons always broadcast URLs, for example.

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maxwellito
"Designed for privacy" part made me laugh. A lot.

~~~
Fogest
Why? It is privacy minded in a way. The business does not get to know any data
about who was near the button or who was near the button. I mean if this
wasn't designed with privacy in mind you would probably expect the business
owner to get a list of all the Facebook users who were in the business.

~~~
mikeash
There's a pretty big difference between "private for the businesses, but
Facebook continues to know All, as is usual for them" which is what you
basically describe, and "actually private, including from Facebook" which is
probably what a reasonable person would understand from "designed for
privacy."

~~~
Fogest
Well I mean Facebook kinda _has_ to know based on how this works. It seems
like the beacon essentially instructs the app to grab data for a specific page
and display it. Based on this Facebook will know that a page was requested.
Page data changes, it wouldn't make much sense for the button to store that
data. The unique id however for a page wouldn't be changing, so that is what
the button uses.

If you're that concerned about such a feature it is easy enough to not use the
app, or simply not use this feature of the app.

~~~
mikeash
You're probably right, but it doesn't suddenly become OK to lie just because
the truth is evident if you think about it. Especially when the average person
does not have the knowledge needed to reach that conclusion.

~~~
Fogest
I think you're thinking about it more from the technical persons view of
privacy. Most non tech people do not think about these kinds of privacy
concerns or worry about what Facebook knows about them. They already have
likely shared a ton of data with Facebook and don't care and likely don't care
to share more. However they may be concerned if they found out every business
they go to was getting a bunch of personal information about them.

So I think the general consumer would be more concerned about all these random
places they go knowing who they are and details about them. This is what I
believe Facebook is trying to state, that no business gets any of your
information. Not that Facebook doesn't get anything. So yes they poorly worded
what exactly is private and what isn't.

~~~
mikeash
Do you think the average non-technical person interprets "designed for
privacy" as "Facebook gets information about all your movements"? I wouldn't
think so personally.

------
nstart
Has anyone else been keeping an eye on estimote? Any idea how this will
measure up against their offering? In many ways this looks similar too. Just
wondering if this is going to make business hard for estimote. Although,
estimote just seems to be a lot more developer friendly, and open to more
applications.

~~~
calvin_c
I really like Estimote, but it seems like they're selling premium hardware in
a space that's racing to the bottom. Most beacons really don't need the
temperature sensors or accelerometers. I finally got my nearables order last
month, over six months after the first promised delivery date, and as great as
those are ten dollars each is still a bit much IMO. Their solid SDK and
developer relationships aren't going to matter too much if stuff like
Facebook's beacons take off, making it so that businesses don't even need
people to download an extra app.

~~~
grandalf
Just got one of these:

[http://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Near-field-Positioning-
Wirel...](http://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Near-field-Positioning-Wireless-
Acquisition/dp/B00O2UDZU6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1434989722&sr=8-2&keywords=ibeacon)

and it works great.

------
DavideNL
"Designed for privacy" -> misleading people who don't understand they are
being traced and manipulated. Disgusting...

------
SchizoDuckie
Yes facebook, please track me more. Bluetooth -> Off.

------
sassal
This looks incredible. They've taken the fact that people will scroll through
their Facebook feeds when sitting at a cafe or shopping at a retail store and
monetized it! Also, if they were to integrate push notifications for every
time you walked into a store to inform people of your specials that could work
great.

~~~
Macuyiko
I don't really get why you need to have a beacon for this though? The Facebook
app is already installed and knows your location anyway. Provide businesses
with a page to enter the details to be pushed to the phone and then just let
the app pop up a notification once the user enters the associated geofence.

If the location is not accurate enough, you can tie it to a Wifi point of the
business (the Wifi doesn't even need to be open). And it doesn't need to use
Bluetooth at all (which I always leave off on all my phones until I really
need it as it consumes a lot of battery).

Given the fact that the Facebook app is already installed anyway on literally
any phone, they could pull this off right away. This is what Foursquare should
have done years ago to survive.

~~~
imrehg
I think you might underestimate how big is the error in the normal (wifi)
location sensing (e.g. see here[1]). Bluetooth beacons add a much more
localized spot, so much less likely to pop up the wrong place on your device,
which is very important for this to be any real use.

[1]: [https://gigaom.com/2012/08/17/how-much-better-is-gps-over-
wi...](https://gigaom.com/2012/08/17/how-much-better-is-gps-over-wi-fi-
positioning-yelp-knows/)

~~~
NathanKP
Exactly. GPS could probably work well enough in suburbs and other areas with
fairly wide spaced buildings, but in a urban environment there could easily be
ten or more businesses within the margin of error for GPS location detection.

------
kbrwn
This could be huge for small bands and artists. Yesterday at a show in Berlin
the drummer kept talking about the bands Facebook page and handing out paper
with the link. If a band could just have a becon that sent out push
notifications to the fb app it could increase engagement significantly.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Beacons can't send push notifications. Beacons are equivalent of light houses
in 2.4GHz spectrum. They just keep broadcasting their presence and send their
UUID. Everything else is done via the apps installed on your device.

(That's, coincidentally, is also why a lot of dream scenarios for beacons
can't take off - they literally require you to have an Internet connection and
a vendor-specific app on your phone to do anything interesting, which is not
something you can expect of people outdoors. Facebook has a really good chance
of making some of the beacon ideas work, because a/ almost everyone has their
app, and b/ it's an app that people actually want to use outdoors, and they
power up their mobile connection for that.)

------
kenrick95
I've read some papers that claims that Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signal does
interfere each other. And in my group project, we tried out transferring files
from phone to phone via Bluetooth while there is another file transfer going
on from laptop to laptop via Wi-Fi; and the result is that the time taken for
the Bluetooth transfer to complete is longer than that when there is no Wi-Fi
file transfer going on. Well, it may depend on the version of Bluetooth and
Wi-Fi frequency used though. (but in my scenario, we're using 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth 4.0)

~~~
aselzer
Of course they interfere, Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE use the 2.4-2.48 ISM
band, and so does WiFi. WiFi has up to 14 overlapping 20MHz channels, and
Bluetooth 4.0 has 40 2MHz channels. Though I guess Bluetooth could be clever
enough to avoid the channels with interference.

~~~
IneffablePigeon
BLE has 3 advertising channels, spaced to try to avoid the WiFi channels. Once
a connection is made (probably not relevant for beacons anyway), it uses
frequency hopping over the other 37 channels to avoid interference as much as
possible.

------
bshimmin
It seems to me like this is the realisation of the personalised advertising
billboards they had in "Minority Report", except instead of billboards it's
your phone (for now...).

~~~
jonlucc
Well I'd doubt it will ever be billboards. They're so clunky and impersonal.
In my opinion, they'll get pushed to your most distracting or annoying device
(watch, glasses, surgically implanted HUD, etc).

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PanMan
This seems to be a "standard" iBeacon with Facebook branding? Or is there
anything different here?

~~~
TeMPOraL
There's nothing interesting in any iBeacon sold, they're just (mostly) Nordic
2.4GHz chips in cool package. What matters is the software and related
services; in this case Facebook has a chance to make iBeacons actually useful
for retailers because they want to make Facebook app itself be able to use
beacons to deliver you localized information. With a typical beacons you'd
have to install a special app for every store or service that wants to use
them.

------
kissickas
Looks like a cool idea and I'm excited for Facebook, but I'm also quite happy
I never have Bluetooth enabled except when I'm at home. Do other HNers tend to
have it on? Bluetooth headsets seem to be on the decline but with cars getting
smarter I'm not really sure.

~~~
icebraining
I always have it on. I'm already being tracked using Wi-fi and GPS; BT beacons
are unlikely to pose much more of a threat.

If you don't want to be tracked, you're better off not installing Facebook or
any other closed-source app with BT or location permissions.

------
drezko
The problem with beacons to date is the lack of a happy medium between
controlled network and openness for 3rd party developers.

Most developers are not Facebook and won't be able to ship thousands and
thousands of beacons to businesses for their apps.

Also, this is a super haphazard deployment by FB. Their installation
instructions are "take it out of the box, set it up somewhere in a central
area and you're good to go." Well not really - these beacons are going to end
up in weird places, giving people "Place Tips" when they're walking down an
alley, or live upstairs from a restaurant with a FB beacon.

------
ape4
Quick a dirty beacon: set the SSID of your wifi network to a URL.

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Sarkie
Ha, I made something very similar 9 years ago as a POC, but the tech and
battery life didn't really work back then, J2ME was a bitch.

Give a shop a "beacon". Track customers in a mall. Find general walking
patterns. Give time limited offers. Give awards if you stay in a shop for x
minutes. Main one I liked Find a friend feature.

Also looked at installing them in Theme Parks and at Concerts mainly for the
Find a friend.

Probably a privacy nightmare, bluetooth battery nightmare.

~~~
reustle
I know someone working on this right now and a bunch of cities are already on
board to get the data.

------
ryanmarsh
The first thing that came to mind was "wow Life Invader isn't so far off as a
parody". Life Invader was a parody on Facebook in Grand Theft Auto V.

------
shostack
Am I missing something, or can you just leave Bluetooth off for this to be a
non-issue from a privacy standpoint?

I usually never have it on anyway due to battery drain.

------
golergka
Practical question: I participate in promoting events that take places in
different venues every time. Will these beacons work for business like this?

~~~
rogeryu
I bet you can buy ads to promote your events. FB will know the location of the
beacons, and can serve your ads to people walking there.

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formatjam
I actually saw this in full effects near alexandra steakhouse Cupertino. It is
a really impressive experience. and also surprisingly, it works for even when
I was quite far away, at least like 20 meters. I wonder how the technology
works. Dose it has something to do with the one way transmission?

------
sneak
I doubt this does anything unless you have location services enabled for
Facebook.

Most people do, of course.

------
wodenokoto
I'm impressed with their focus on privacy, but for me as a business owner I am
probably not as interested in my customers privacy as my customers are in
their own, so the privacy issue should probably be communicated more to fb
users than to businesses.

Secondly, this page is very vague about what benefit I as a business owner
will gain from service. Seriously, what will I gain?

I remember Facebook announced a free WiFi service for businesses, where I as a
business owner could give my customers free WiFi if they checked-in at my
location on Facebook. Now there's a benefit for the business!

~~~
pluma
If as a business owner you're not interested in your customers' privacy,
remind me not to do business with you.

~~~
biot
You misinterpreted what he wrote. It's entirely possible to care about
customer privacy a great deal yet the customer will generally still care more.
It's an exceedingly rare business that would actually care _more_ about your
privacy than you would yourself.

And it's entirely possible a business could care too much for your privacy by
taking cash only ("Sorry, credit and debit cards will track you. Checks leave
a paper trail."), have a faraday cage around the entire building to block any
RF signals ("You don't want big brother tracking you!"), etc. while you just
want to buy that item with your credit card and be able to get messages while
shopping.

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taytus
I'm so sick of FB. FB pages are really a joke at this point.

