IssueTracker

The current version of the SDK (v3.5.0) deprecates Place.isOpen and suggests using PlacesClient.isOpen(IsOpenRequest) instead.

However, the design of the suggested replacement may lead to billable fetchPlace calls that will never return additional Place data.

Scenario 1

A Place is requested that has no opening hours and will be unable to satisfy a local PlacesClient.isOpen(IsOpenRequest) lookup.

This sequence of events incurs two billable calls to Place Details (New).

val placeId = "ChIJeR1SToWhlVQRGxmYMtraSj0"

val fields = mutableListOf(
  Place.Field.ID,
  Place.Field.BUSINESS_STATUS,
  Place.Field.CURRENT_OPENING_HOURS,
  Place.Field.UTC_OFFSET,
  Place.Field.OPENING_HOURS,
)

val request = FetchPlaceRequest.newInstance(placeId, placeFields)

placesClient.fetchPlace(request)
  .addOnSuccessListener {
    val isOpenRequest = IsOpenRequest.newInstance(it.place)
    placesClient.isOpen(isOpenRequest)
      .addOnSuccessListener {
        // ...
      }
  }

Scenario 2

Similar to the first scenario, when using PlacesClient.searchNearby(SearchNearbyRequest request), some Place results have no listed opening hours and will incur unnecessary calls to fetchPlace that will return no additional Place information.

val locationRestriction =
  CircularBounds.newInstance(latlng, 500.0)

val fields = mutableListOf(
  Place.Field.ID,
  Place.Field.BUSINESS_STATUS,
  Place.Field.CURRENT_OPENING_HOURS,
  Place.Field.UTC_OFFSET,
  Place.Field.OPENING_HOURS,
)

val request = SearchNearbyRequest
  .builder(locationRestriction, fields)
  .build()

placesClient.searchNearby(request)
  .addOnSuccessListener {
    it.places.forEach { place ->
      val isOpenRequest = IsOpenRequest.newInstance(place)
      placesClient.isOpen(isOpenRequest)
        .addOnSuccessListener {
          // ...
        }
    }
  }

Suggested Remediations

1. Update IsOpenResponse with a field that indicates whether or not a fetchPlace lookup was done.
2. Update IsOpenRequest.Builder with an option to immediately fail if the necessary fields are missing on the given Place object instead of performing a billable fetchPlace request.
3. (Optional) Remove the deprecation of Place.isOpen, which has no costly side effects.

Notes

This design issue also impacts Places SDK for iOS. The suggested remediations are the same.