Google is beginning to roll out a new set of features to help developers build apps using a location technology and tools to link smartphones to nearby objects. The search giant on Tuesday introduced a new format called Eddystone that lets electronic beacons provide more specific locations and other information within applications. The tools, which compete with Apple’s iBeacon technology, will enable smartphone users at a museum, for example, to get more information on a painting they’re looking at or to gain easy access to electronic bus tickets when they’re near a bus stop.

Google is offering a new open format for Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons to communicate with people’s devices, a way for developers to add this meaningful data to their apps and to Google services, as well as a way to manage their fleet of beacons efficiently.

At the core of what it means to be a BLE beacon is the frame format—i.e., a language—that a beacon sends out into the world. Eddystone supports multiple frame types for different use cases, and it supports versioning to make introducing new functionality easier. It’s cross-platform, capable of supporting Android, iOS or any platform that supports BLE beacons. And it’s available on GitHub under the open-source Apache v2.0 license, for everyone to use and help improve.

Privacy and security are really important, so Google built in a feature called Ephemeral Identifiers (EIDs) which change frequently, and allow only authorized clients to decode them.

Google’s Eddystone will be open to other platforms and has features that work on Android and the iPhone, the company said.

Google is also starting to improve its own products and services with beacons. Google Maps launched beacon-based transit notifications in Portland earlier this year, to help people get faster access to real-time transit schedules for specific stations. And soon, Google Now will also be able to use this contextual information to help prioritize the most relevant cards, like showing users menu items when they’re inside a restaurant.

Apple rolled out iBeacon in 2013. Using a low-energy Bluetooth signal, the software makes an iPhone’s proximity to certain items easier to track with the help of $10 signaling device beacons mounted on shelves and ceilings, each no bigger than a hockey puck. Other providers also have introduced location technology.