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I'm trying to test the Google Nearby notifications on my Android phone's using iBeacon beacons. It seems to work only intermittently. When I get into the range of the Beacon, the notification does not seem to happen at all most of the times. I'll see the notifications a few hours later or at random times.

I'm unable to understand how this should all work. I would expect the notification show up in the notifications list (I know they are low priority) soon after I'm in the beacon range. The whole point of Nearby Notifications is to get someone in the proximity of the beacon to see the notification and take some action.

The way it is implemented today seems totally useless. Has anyone seen this work correctly?

MarsAtomic
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Beacon Hunter
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  • What device model and OS version are you testing with? Have you verified with a beacon scanning app that the beacon is detected when it is in the vicinity and you expect to see the Nearby notification? – davidgyoung Jul 25 '16 at 03:16
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    I've verified this on both my LG G4 and Nexus 6 Android devices. I verified with different apps that the Beacon's are being detected correctly including my own app. I have the latest OS and updates including Google Play. And like I mentioned, it works sometimes but it's random or intermittent when I see the notifications. – Beacon Hunter Jul 25 '16 at 14:00
  • We have exactly the same experiences on various devices. Plus if I delete a nearby notification by swiping, it is hidden for a while, but later - after a random period of time - appears again. Sometimes after a second, if I am still in the coverage of the EddyStone, sometimes does not appear even after hours, even if I am in the coverage. I am totally confused, and don't know what should be the correct work. – Tom Jul 25 '16 at 15:38

1 Answers1

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(I work on Nearby)

The implementation tries to balance creating developer value with respecting the user's attention and battery. Towards that end, we've made a few choices in the shipping version that you're probably encountering:

  • If you swipe away a notification, it disappears for an exponentially increasing amount of time (1 day, 2 days, 4 days, ...)

  • The notification only appears after a screen-on event. For most use-cases and users, it will be a minimum priority notification. This means that it doesn't create a status bar icon.

  • For users who have already gone through the Nearby Notifications warm-welcome experience, some notifications will begin life as low priority. These do create a status bar icon. However, after a few minutes as low priority they fade to min priority and stay there.

A point of confusion with some developers has been low versus (icon) versus min (no icon) priority. It's also possible we have a bug impacting recall.

If you want to crank up logging (adb shell setprop log.tag.NearbyDiscovery VERBOSE) and post the relevant part of a bug report as a gist or pastebin we can take a look. I can't promise a response on this forum, but if we have a bug, we're motivated to fix it. You'll want to make sure you're in range of the beacon via a 3P beacon scanner (we sometimes use nRF Connect), then do a screen off and screen on and capture the bug report if the notification wasn't created within 10-15 seconds.

Andrew Bunner
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  • Andrew, thank you very much for your response. Your response for the notification disappearing for an exponentially does make sense but it doesn't explain to me why I sometimes see the same notification a few times within a few hours or it doesn't appears for very long periods of time. For example, I noticed the same notification show up 3 times at intervals of approximately an hour. This was the same brand new notification I had registered with a Beacon in the morning and had not seen all day. – Beacon Hunter Jul 26 '16 at 04:20
  • I appreciate you telling me about the notification only showing up on a screen-on event but it doesn't seem to make sense to me. Does this mean that If someone is actively using the phone and is near a beacon, he may totally miss the notification and won't see it until the next time he turns on his phone? Won't most users miss out on proximity/nearby notifications? The entire promise for retail is to convert those undecided proximity customers to convert right then and there. How will this ever convince any retailer to use this feature? I'm a little confused. – Beacon Hunter Jul 26 '16 at 04:26
  • Andrew, I'm working on getting you the logs so please stay tuned. Thanks again for your help and responses since it's been really hard to find relevant information on this feature anywhere. – Beacon Hunter Jul 26 '16 at 19:41
  • We're balancing battery, user experience and developer value. Our stats indicate users turn on their phone screens pretty often. – Andrew Bunner Jul 27 '16 at 19:11
  • @AndrewBunner can you check this question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38654231/nearby-notifications-not-showing – radzio Jul 29 '16 at 19:47
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    Andrew, I'm really disappointed that the background scanning only works with a screen-on event. This requirement ignores a lot of use-cases where notifications can be sent to users in the vicinity of the beacon even if the user is not in range now. Nearby notifications are already low priority alerts and I don't see background scanning as draining too much battery. So I'm boggled that you will only do background scanning on a screen-on event. This is no different now where a user has to actively be engaged to download an use an app. Are you hoping to change this anytime soon? (say yes pls) :( – Beacon Hunter Aug 23 '16 at 13:46