Are Bluetooth beacons still a thing?

[bellamystudio]

I'm planning a guide app for a museum and was wondering if low energy bluetooth beacons are still something that gets used for location aware apps, or whether there's a better way of knowing whereabouts a visitor is and whether they are near a key exhibit. I haven't worked into this area for a few years so would value any insight from the community.

[throwaway24124]

QR codes. Look into the Museum of Danish Resistance, they have implemented a really impressive guide app (on a device they hand you when you walk in), which you use to scan QR codes and listen to audio narration as you walk through the museum. Much more interactive than a standard audio guide, and really changed my perspective of what a museum can be. I think the Alcatraz museum does something similar, but I haven't been in a long time so my memory is fuzzy.

[solardev]

Hey, nice to see museum folks here!

I previously worked for a museum too, trying to solve the same problem.

Many of the providers called it "blue dot" positioning/wayfinding, and aside from Bluetooth, vendors also offered ultrasonic beacons (your phone can hear and triangulate), wifi triangulation (you map out various APs across the property into a 3d map and the app then triangulate). I think there were also some that would try to guess your location based on the music playing in the background (like if your exhibit had a background track) and another that did something similar with visible light.

One of the more interesting techs I saw was a image recognition network of ceiling cameras, mounted on lighting rails, that was supposed to keep track of individual visitors as they moved about each exhibit. I wasn't sure if it could track them through the whole facility (as opposed to just one discrete room), but if so, that'd be interesting (and creepy).

Edit: PS you might wanna check out the MCN (Museum Computer Network) conference and mailing list for museum technologists.

At the end of the day all of them were too complex and/or expensive. We just printed out a bunch of "you are here" signs with QR codes that led to specific webpages and/or anchors on our digital map. Like /exhibits/blah or /map#blah. The signs showed a cutout of their current map position, so when they scanned the QR code, it would look like the same section of the map.

This was at the tail end of covid, though, and management was still against paper maps at that point. I really wish we could've just printed those out.

IMO only (we wanted to do more research and A/B tests, but I don't think we got to it): the UX of trying to navigate a big 3d indoor space on a tiny phone screen is not great. It's hard to represent both floors (and their corresponding stairs/elevators) and relative facing (NSEW is totally unclear indoors). Pathfinding / navigation from point A to B was also something we didn't solve yet, because it's hard to see the whole path when you're zoomed in, hard to see geometry when you're zoomed out. Overall a bigger paper map in a trifold was a lot simpler.

[bellamystudio]

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I'm thinking less about mapping (at least, not 'live' mapping) and more about proximity to key exhibits (ie the app says 'hey, you're near X painting' and jumps to the info on that piece. Some of the technical solutions you outline are really interesting (background music!). It may all come to nothing but I'm enjoying investigating and talking to other museum people :)

[solardev]

Cool! I think that becomes more doable then, when the app just has to be able to distinguish between one of several possibilities (one out of X exhibits) instead of anywhere on the museum campus.

I think the ultrasonic beacons might work better than Bluetooth for this, and have less issues with wall/floor penetration. It's probably easier to ask visitors "our exhibits play a special sound signal to let the app know when you're close. Will you allow mic access?" than to try to explain how BT beacons work. Whatever you choose though, it's probably best to back it up with a QR code or just a printed number ("Which exhibit are you at?" 27) etc.

[edent]

Not really.

Google killed off their "Physical Web" integration which means that people need to install a specific app if they want to interact with the beacons.

If you want to track visitors (and have the requisite privacy policy) then Cisco and others will sell you an AP which tracks people using their phones.

QR codes are booming though. Cheap to set up and easy to use.

[bellamystudio]

I'm going to build it in React Native and there are some libraries that could help rather than have to use a specific app, eg https://github.com/MacKentoch/react-native-beacons-manager

I don't want to do anything invasive like actually track visitors, I just want to be able to offer helpful "You're near X exhibit" type notifications. Obviously if there's a group close together than it may just become annoying/unnecessary - I'll have to figure that out as I talk to the curators.

QR codes are a good backup and would mean that they wouldn't need an app at all (although I would love to build them one!)

[jqpabc123]

QR codes are booming though. Cheap to set up and easy to use.

And totally insecure --- as in anyone can make a copy and share it.

This is possible with beacons as well but not as easily nor without cost. And beacons can offer greater ease of use --- no need to scan.

There are applications for each.

[BjoernKW]

> And totally insecure --- as in anyone can make a copy and share it.

Which is totally fine for the use case at hand and not a security issue at all, in this case. For other use cases, such as advertising, sharing would even be desired behaviour.

A possible security issue for the museum use case rather would be a malicious actor replacing the QR code with their own, thereby trying to have visitors download malware to their phones.

[Someone]

> For other use cases, such as advertising, sharing would even be desired behaviour.

Not necessarily. It could be used to associate the advertiser with something they don’t want to be associated with.

Depending on what the QR code leads to, that may have to be a subtle difference.

For example, if I copy a QR code for a Greenpeace campaign and place them at the Indianapolis speedway, or at a hunting event, theres a chance that those who read the code will think that Greenpeace placed them there in an attempt to comment on the badness of those events, but what if the link leads to a “good to see you here” or fairly generic “support this green event” web page, things may be different.

[jqpabc123]

QR Codes are like URL links in spam email.

They can be easily generated/distributed at almost no cost and it's difficult to tell in advance if one is malicious or not.

[rogerian]

We use them in Bus Stop Displays for visually impaired people to get information about the bus stop and the expected arrivals. They have to have a special app installed on their phone to interact with it.

[rogerian]

https://react-access.com/

[bellamystudio]

That's a great use-case - thank you!