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document updated 1 year, 11 months ago, on Nov 17, 2022

Bluetooth LE beacons containing URLs, support dropped by Google

Google's Physical Web
- Physical Web Beacons discontinued in 2018
- Nearby Notifications stopped on all Android devices on Dec 6, 2018 due to spam
  - Engadget article
- support removed from Chrome in 2019
- beacon support removed from Google Nearby Messages API in 2021
Google's Eddystone-URL — discontinued in 2018
Samsung CloseBy — seems to rely on Google's Physical Web, and therefore it may have been discontinued too?

features and interest after 2018

semi-related features that Google continues to support:
- Android's Fast Pair functionality seems to have been announced around the same time that the decision to discontinue Nearby Notifications was being made
- the Nearby Messages API continues, even though beacon support was completely removed
advertisers / retailers continue to try to push it, despite loss of support in factory Android builds [1] [2] [3]

other "nearby" mediums that allow going to URLs

QR codes — Most people know about these, and there's wide official support from smartphone developers.
NFCs containing URLs — Yup, this works fine in Android.