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July 14, 2015

Kontakt.io Launches Support for Eddystone™ Beacon Format from Google

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New beacon format from Google creates more flexible and powerful contextual computing experiences

 

Las Vegas, NV (14th July 2015) — Kontakt.io, the award-winning proximity solution provider, has announced that they are one of a select few companies who have offered for sale today Bluetooth beacons that use the new open beacon format called Eddystone. The new beacon format, developed by Google, has a broader selection of information that it can broadcast and shows potential to shake up the proximity market space in interesting ways.

 

“Working to get the Eddystone format running on Kontakt.io hardware was a substantial investment of time and energy from our side,” said Szymon Niemczura, CEO of Kontakt.io, “We’ve had a great opportunity to prepare for the launch, and have completely native support for the Eddystone open beacon format in our Kontakt.io Cloud Platform and on our hardware stack. This means we’ve already got a complete, secure management platform in place for beacons of any kind. The new open format from Google is a great move that puts beacons more fully into the Android space, which is growing to be over 70% of the smartphone market.”

 

The Eddystone format for beacons differs from other formats principally by having 2 different types of information that it broadcasts: the Eddystone-UID and the Eddystone URL. The Eddystone UID is very similar to the iBeacon profile, while the Eddystone-URL is an extension of the already existing Physical Web beacon functionality. Kontakt.io will be providing Eddystone functionality to all customers as an OTA update soon, and in the mean time Eddystone beacons can be bought directly from Kontakt.io now.

 

“By including the ability to display relevant content on an opted-in user’s smart device without even installing a specific application for that location, the Eddystone open format from Google has the potential to change expectations from end users for what proximity can do for them.” Niemczura continued. “By extending and amplifying who can receive relevant information based on his or her location, the Eddystone format may end up being vastly more integrated with a user’s mobile-connected experience. This will finally make the world of always-available contextual information happen.”


About Kontakt.io

As the leader in Indoor Journey Analytics, we optimize processes and resources by revealing how customers move through your business. Using AI, IoT, and RTLS, Kontakt.io helps businesses uncover waste, streamline capacity, improve workflows, and help customers and staff feel seen and valued. Since 2013, Kontakt.io has provided solutions to +32,000 end users, delivered via +1,200 partners, and deployed +4 million IoT devices in the field.

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