Ironic to call them beacons. Or iBeacons.
The name suggests that they should be clear to see, helping users to move forward with confidence. And users tend to like beacons that make it easy to pick up content and offers in store and elsewhere.
But the lack of standards threatens adoption. It looks like this will become another battleground for competing technologies – increasing the options and confusion of the user.
It’s time to agree standards that let all phones read signals, with an agreed user behaviour. Otherwise the magic of beacons will disappear into a confusion of signals.