Beacon App Development
IoT – Internet of Things has opened the doors to new possibilities where every piece of devices can connect, commute and transact. Few innovative technologies has made this possible and beacon, iBeacon and BLE (Bluetooth low energy ) devices are one of those technologies. Multidots has jumped into this innovation and made this technology an import part of our services and solu-tions to support the world to do great innovations.
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What is Beacon, iBeacon, BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and Bluetooth Smart devices?
In some or other way all of these are quite interconnected but still they are slightly different. In general terms, we can imagine beacons as a small battery-powered device sticked to a wall or some place. In technical terms we can say it is a small BLE device that broadcast tiny piece of data every second or so. On a hardware-level, beacons are BLE-compatible devices that broad-cast data under the “beacon” protocol. On a software-level, beacons are small messages sent by the broadcasting devices, that are then detected and processed by receiver devices, like a mobile app. These data are considered “beacons” as well.
iBeacon is Apple’s version of the Bluetooth-based beacon concept. Apple’s iOS was the first plat-form that brought this concept to the masses. iBeacon allows Bluetooth enabled devices to broad-cast and receive tiny information within short distances. In simplistic words, it consists of two parts: a broadcaster (beacon device) and a receiver (smartphone app). The beacon device (broadcaster) always sends small signal to advertise that “I am here and I am known as this…” and mobile apps detects them and interpret to behave in desire way.
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a new light-weight Bluetooth “flavor” offered within the Bluetooth 4.0 standard. Frequency range and strength of this protocol is low but it has great energy efficien-cy. For a device – iPhone or Desktop to be able to enjoy this new Bluetooth flavor, it needs to be equipped with a more recent Bluetooth chip that is compatible with the 4.0 version of the Bluetooth standard. Originally, Bluetooth Low Energy was invented by Nokia back in 2006 under the name of “Wibree”. Before Wibree got popular and became available to the masses, Nokia decided to trans-fer its low power technology to BSIG (Bluetooth Special Interest Group), which controls and stan-dardises the Bluetooth technology. After being incorporated by the BSIG, the technology was re-named to “Bluetooth Smart”, which is the commercial name of the “flavour” and it is the same as Bluetooth Low Energy, which is the technical name. Bluetooth Smart (or BLE) is only compatible and available on devices that are compatible with the 4.0 version of the Bluetooth Standard.
What kind of applications we can build with beacon technology?
Possibility with beacon and smart bluetooth technology is really huge and endless. Here, you can see couple of obvious and innovative way to use this technology.
Resources Tracking
As it’s location based technology which is energy and cost effective we can think of it to track the resources. We can build apps to track table in restaurant, tracks kids and pets in house or schools.
Effective Navigation
We see a great possibility and tool for blind and physically challenged people with this technology. Imagine a conference centre which is equipped with beacon device and mobile app. Blind people can navigate to different section with the app which detects and guide the person for the navigation.
Interactive Tour
Imagine a Zoo mobile app, which visitors open once they get into the park. When they are close to selected attractions, the app fires a notification/image/video with information of what is being looked at. In museum if are in front of an object, the app can offers all the great information about that piece.
Education & Classrooms
There are many possibilities with this technology to enrich the education and classroom experiences. We can build few educational games with this technology. For more uses cases of this in education visit http://www.jnxyz.education/beaconsforeducation/
Automation
All kinds of automation, be it home, commercial or industrial, are directly related to what beacons can offer. From your garage door that opens once your car stops by (without pressing any button) to lights that go on and off as you need them to be is possible with smart bluetooth technology and beacons.
Push-Driven Marketing
We can offer more push-driven marketing apps in different business verticals. We can interact and advertise in more effective way with customers and push our products and services at right time, right place and right way.Customers can receive instant and limited offers as they walk inside the store or pass by a grocery shop.
How Multidots can help you build your beacon app or solution?
Okay, this is where we are very excited about. Considering beacon technology a “hot cake” and looking at possible innovations with this we have invested huge time and resources to learn this technology and their tools. We have done several “LAB” experiments and “Live” works with bea-cons and can proudly say that we got great level of expertise and highly motivated experts in bea-con apps development and smart bluetooth app development. We are equipped with profound sound knowledge, infrastructure and methods and processes involved in design, development and deployment of beacon apps. Our keen interest and desire to innovate keeps us motivated to up-date and upgrade our skills and knowledge with beacon and IoT technologies.
