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Tanuj from the Estimote team here. If you're curious about some of the under-the-hood mechanics between BLE beacons, Eddystone, and the Physical Web check out developer docs http://developer.estimote.com/eddystone/
Tanuj from Estimote business team here. It's also super useful for my efforts. Makes it so much easier to communicate to customers what we're working on, and there's also the intangible benefit of impressing potential customers with how fast and how much we ship -- e.g., https://twitter.com/stevecheney/status/598905085826043905
Hey, Tanuj from Estimote here. We're constantly challenging our engineering team to extend battery life through a combination of better hardware but more importantly smarter software, delivered via OTA updates. For instance, our first generation beacons just had their battery life significantly upgraded recently (blog.estimote.com/post/91749152580/estimote-rolls-out-the-worlds-first-power-management) without any need for a hardware change. We'll do the same with Stickers. 1 year is the default battery life at launch but it'll get better, quickly :)
Yup it'll broadcast like an iBeacon. So yes, if you wanted to use stickers instead of beacons because the price / size / aesthetic / whatever suits your needs better, that's possible and 100% up to you. Our goal is to be super developer focused and make the platform (hardware + firmware + SDK's + API's for management) flexible.
Hey Mathew, Tanuj from Estimote here. Yup, our original Beacons include temperature and accelerometer sensors too. We actually unlocked those features via an over-the-air firmware update a few months ago: http://blog.estimote.com/post/87918401035/firmware-update-ac.... Use the Estimote app to update your beacons' firmware and you're good to go.
As to your other question, currently the beacon or sticker just transmits exactly as you said: moving or not. But we'd like to expand that in the future to include direction, velocity, time in motion, etc. Are there particular parameters you'd like to see?
Hey, Tanuj from Estimote here. Stickers and Beacons are meant to be complementary products. Beacons are great to attaching to fixed points inside venues - museums, stores, sports stadiums, etc. They add location context to a physical space. Stickers, on the other hand, are small and discrete enough to be attached to objects. Put it on any item to turn it into a nearable, a smart, connected object that broadcasts data about its location, motion and temperature. You can read more about our vision on our blog: http://blog.estimote.com/post/95382199590/nearables-are-here...
Tanuj from Estimote here. Great idea, Daniel. You could build a simple app that sends you a push if your bike is in motion - that way if you're inside, you know if anyone is messing with it.