15 2015beaconsin

WAYS TO USE

One of the simplest ways to use iBeacon is on displays, at point-of-sale and at information points to provide those nearby with content relating to where they are. You can control how content is displayed by date, time and even the weather. Different content can be shown depending how close someone is to the beacon and by how long they’ve been near to it, whether they’ve been there before and if they’re are moving away.

discovery1

2In its simplest form iBeacon technology can be used to transmit content from one device to another. It works like AirDrop but is persistent – the sharing persists from one app to another until transmission is stopped.

sharing

3 sellingPlace an iBeacon on a mannequin, sofa, pair of shoes or even a house to let potential buyers to find out more about a product when near to them. Beacons are being adopted in retail to help shoppers make more informed buying decisions and to navigate their way around stores. Beacons are also being used by retailers alongside customer data profiling to up-sell and cross-sell, and also to provide a more personalised customer service.

& customerservice

Whether it’s to make a purchase, learn about something or go somewhere, beacons are being used to influence the behaviour of those nearby and this is especially effective when they are used in clusters. For example, by triggering different information at various beacon points in a museum you can potentially alter the visitor’s path to include a new display or perhaps a survey or donation point.

4influencing behaviour

5Potentially you can monitor anything such as proximity to a beacon, dwell time, path from one beacon to another, and then use this information to learn out about your places, spaces, customers, visitors, patients, students etc. In Healthcare, beacons can be used to track a number of things like medicine dispensing, hospital ward entry sanitation and to allow doctors to quickly and securely access the correct patent records.

& trackingmonitoring

Every beacon interaction can be counted which means they can be used standalone or in groups to collect numerical data and flow profiling. Examples are cars entering a car park, shoppers in a till queue, people entering/leaving a building, patients in a waiting area, and attendees at a conference. Whether your motivation for counting is sales, safety or something entirely different, beacons can play a useful and important role in measuring numbers.

counting6

There is great potential for using beacons in schools and universities. You can turn a teacher’s device into a beacon to automatically transmit the right content to student’s devices when the teacher walks into a room. Teachers can also create their own beacon self-discovery displays for students to explore with their devices. Integration with back-end solutions like Google Apps for Education and iTunesU ensure that beacons fit in with existing education platforms, therefore offering real value.

7education

8Beacons can be used to automate mechanical processes; turning on the lights, adjusting the heating, vending a coffee or paying for parking, and also manual processes such as airport check-in or entering a building. In most situations where the ‘if this, then that’ rule can be applied, beacons can be used to make things to happen ‘magically’ where you’re nearby.

automation

For many things like surveys, place and timing is a major factor for success. Beacons give you the power for ‘in the moment’ feedback from the right people exactly when you need it. For example, you can use a beacon to conduct a survey at the exit of your museum, or take a real-time poll at a live conference.

9 polling & surveys

1paymentsBeacons can be used to trigger ‘in the moment’ real-time payments and therefore enable sales to be closed when the time is right. Offering seamless on-the-spot payments will please customers who are in a hurry and some retailers like Apple, are moving completely away from ’tills in the corner’ retail layouts in favour of more dynamic and self-service payment processes which align perfectly with beacon technology. 0

wearables

The growth of wearables is great for beacons as devices like ‘smart watches’ are pushing the widespread adoption of Low Energy Bluetooth in everyday use. So whether it’s a watch, a fitness band or a ‘smart’ item of clothing, connecting the wearable to devices and services that are nearby has very exciting potential. You could, for example, receive app notifications on your watch when it’s nearby a beacon, or link your physical activity that day to automatically customise your workout plan, which is beacon-triggered when you enter the gym.

11 http://www.apple.com/uk/watch/apple-watch-sport/

Any group of people who get together can use beacons to get more out of that time and place. You could take a beacon with you to a meeting and instantly share your contact details, agenda and presentation with anyone in that room, without email and without codes. Another example is at a networking event, where a room can identify who is in it and encourage interactions by making introductions automatically based on shared interests or company sectors.

groups 12

1The great thing about beacons is that you can ‘layer’ content on them and control who sees what. In a museum, for example, you can deliver different content for first time visitors, regular visitors, patrons, school children etc. All these different sets of content are all triggered by the same set of beacons, but the user experience is defined by each users’ app and their own unique use of it.

marketsegmentation3

14Beacons can add an extra layer to many security systems to make them much more resilient. E.g. if John is carrying a beacon and passes a face recognition camera, the system no longer asks “Whose face is this?” but rather “Is this John’s face?, which performs a much deeper recognition test. Personal beacons can also be useful for determining access to information or log access to areas in a building.

security

iBeacon app content doesn’t have to be a just a coupon or a special offer, far from it! Apps can be used to deliver videos, images, games, puzzles and quizzes, that are pertinent to a specific location. You could give a beacon as a gift, which automatically ‘opens’ some content in an app on a specific date such as voucher on a birthday. One of the first uses for beacons and still one of the best is for treasure hunts, where users reveal clues by visiting beacons in a specific order.

fun

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?how will you use beacons

2015in

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