Mere months after introducing Location Beacons, we’re now updating our Proximity Beacons with new hardware and firmware, as well! We added programmable NFC, made it 30% more energy efficient (which allows improved responsiveness without compromising battery life), and it’s the first beacon on the market sporting Nordic Semiconductor’s latest nRF52 chip, the most advanced BLE chip yet. All that value for the same $59 per dev kit of three Proximity Beacons, further reinforcing their position as the most cost-efficient beacons available.
Pre-order new Proximity Beacons
Shipping starts later this July
Far, Near, Immediate … NFC!
We’ve been hearing a lot of great ideas for projects that require explicit interactions with beacons—confirming payments, collecting loyalty points, clocking-in, etc. The new Proximity Beacon comes with a built-in NFC tag, making these ideas much easier to implement.
Think about it this way: we want Estimote to be the bridge between your app and the physical world, and now, these interactions can be based not only on proximity, but also on the very explicit gesture of touching a beacon. It’s almost as if we’ve added a new API method to the physical world!
NFC in the new Proximity Beacons is fully programmable: set up as many of your own NDEF records as you like, up to 256 bytes total, all through our secure configuration API. Together with the Estimote fleet management API, you could even re-configure these records remotely.
Last but not least, thanks to Android’s built-in NFC support, the new beacons open up another channel for app distribution. Just program the NFC with your Android app’s unique identifier, and then touching a smartphone to that beacon will open your app’s page in Google Play Store. Or, with Instant Apps coming to the next version of Android, it could run your app without installation!
Tap to connect
Estimote Android app already supports Proximity Beacon’s NFC. It’s now easier to identify and configure beacons—just tap one with your smartphone, and the Estimote app will automatically open and connect to it.
Better responsiveness
Developers building beacon-enabled apps are often balancing between responsiveness and battery life. With the new Proximity Beacons, there’s no need to compromise. We’ve tripled their default responsiveness, and the default battery life is still more than 2 years. If you want to prioritize your beacons’ lifetime instead, the new beacons can last as long as 7 years (and that’s before Power Modes kick in, further extending the battery life).
4th generation firmware
We introduced the 4th generation of our firmware a few months ago alongside Location Beacons, and we’re making it available in the new Proximity Beacons, too. Just to recall: the new firmware brings optimized power consumption, faster and more secure configuration and firmware update process, connectionless sensor and battery data via the Estimote Telemetry packet, and a dedicated Estimote Connectivity packet to keep advertising iBeacon and Eddystone even when connected to a beacon.
More opportunities, same price
The refreshed Proximity Beacons will cost the same at $59 for a 3-beacon dev kit, and with all the new features, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more budget-friendly option on the market. Pre-order them today, and be among the first to receive them when we start shipping in two weeks.
Pre-order new Proximity Beacons
Shipping starts later this July