Estimote

07.13.14 / 12:38

Estimote

• Just raised over $3.1M
• It’s just BLE advertising. It does nothing but exposes specific major and minor ID’s of the thing you want to identify
• The app does all the work. Upon retrieving the associated ID, it can give context-aware information to the user
• This is the market NFC wanted to target, and it’s getting marginalized by BLE
• Uses Nordic nRF51822 + accelerometer
• Apple introduced iBeacon, which gave Estimote a boost
• Device like Estimote does not give any access to the attached accelerometer
• In fact, BLE devices with pre-flashed firmware limits the user interaction with the hardware pretty significantly

http://gigaom.com/2013/09/10/with-ibeacon-apple-is-going-to-dump-on-nfc-and-embrace-the-internet-of-things

http://makezine.com/2014/01/03/reverse-engineering-the-estimote (Sandeep co-authored)