WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IBEACON™ AND EDDYSTONE™?

iBeacon™ is a communication protocol developed by Apple for BLE devices. Eddystone™ is a similar protocol developed by Google. These are some of the key differences between the two.

1. iBeacon™ profiles are proprietary to Apple while Eddystone™ is an open protocol
2. iBeacon profile defines only one packet format which contains a UUID. Eddystone on the other hand supports 4 different frame types – UUID, URL, Telemetry and Ephemeral ID

Here are the links to detailed iBeacon specs and Eddystone specs.

When broadcasting packets containing UUID, Eddystone behaves similar to iBeacon.

Packets containing URL’s are similar to a QR code. When a user is near an Eddystone beacon broadcasting a URL, they will receive a notification with the URL which can then be opened inside of Chrome browser.

Many hardware vendors have released devices which are iBeacon and/or Eddystone compliant.

Most devices running iOS version 7.0 or higher are capable of receiving iBeacon messages. Android devices running JellyBeans and newer are also capable of processing iBeacon messages. Similarly devices running Android version starting with Marshmallow are capable of processing Eddystone messages.