Beacon, BLE, and the Future of Commerce

Jonathan LeBlanc (@jcleblanc)

Global Head of PayPal Developer Evangelism

Connection: Continuous vs Intermittent

Throughput: 0.7-2.1 Mbit/s vs 0.27 Mbit/s

Power Consumption: 1 mW vs 0.01-0.5 mW

Range: 100 meters vs 50 meters

Physical Shopping

Using the Location

CentralDevice

PeripheralBridge

IP AddressEndpoint

A transparent bridge from device to IP

How the Technology Works

A Person Walks into a Store

Device Bridge

Broadcasting to Connect

Beacon broadcasts who’s here message

PayPal app wakes up & connects to beacon

Device Bridge

The Initial Connection

Beacon selects unused token, sends with nonce, metadata, and signature

App verifies signature with public key, decides to check in via metadata

Device

Checking in

App sends encrypted checkin metadata to PayPal

PayPal servers decrypt data and check consumer in Endpoint

Device

Wrapping Things Up

PayPal servers send encrypted message back

App decrypts / verifies message & disconnects Endpoint

Point of Sale Integration

Don’t be Creepy

What’s in Store for Us?

Thank You!

Jonathan LeBlanc (@jcleblanc)

Global Head of PayPal Developer Evangelism