Beacon Application | Beacon Technology will let us kiss app clutter goodbye

Source    : Tennessean
By        :    Julie May
Category  : Beacon Technology

There is an app for almost everything these days. If you’ve been shopping lately, visited a tourist destination or gone out to eat, you’ve probably encountered the many businesses trying to get you to download and use their app on your smart device. So many apps, so little time.

We turn to our smartphones for the answers to many daily questions. What’s on the menu at my favorite restaurant? Are there any specials here today? What is worth visiting nearby? Often, a search doesn’t find the answer as quickly as we’d like.

Apps are well-intentioned tech efforts but are often expensive for businesses, because smartphone apps require regular redevelopment to conform to upgrades required by Apple and Android. Plus, they clutter up your smartphone’s storage and, when left running, drain batteries.

It’s frustrating for the customer — and in many cases, it’s not worth it for a business to create a custom app.

Wouldn’t it be great if answers just “came to you” based on your location or your preferences? You could stop juggling multiple apps and stop bogging down your smartphone.

According to Business Insider, “Beacons will directly influence over $4 billion worth of U.S. retail sales this year at top retailers, and that number will climb tenfold in 2016."

How beacons work

Beacon technology is an intuitive way for consumers to skip the smartphone app hurdles. A business can install these small pieces of hardware practically anywhere. Once they’re set up, beacons use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to transmit information to nearby smartphones.  A business controls the information broadcast by beacons with a browser-based software system that maps each beacon and updates the messaging whenever, wherever you want.

BLE for Business

It’s easy to see how Bluetooth Low Energy beacons make sense for many businesses.

First, you install BLE-enabled beacons in key locations (on your corporate campus, in your hospital or at your shopping mall), wherever you might need to reach a customer with information. Your customers’ smartphone detects information shared by a beacon in their smartphone browser. You could share a map — or pictures, coupons specials, tourist information, audio and video tours, wheelchair locations — whatever is most valuable to your business and the user.

BLE for customers

As a customer, you’ll be able to kiss your phone’s app clutter goodbye. Best of all, you won’t have to figure out how to find the answer nearly so often. You may start to feel like your smartphone just reads your mind.

Beacon technology should even end up feeling less intrusive for customers, because it only works when the phone screen is already on, instead of sending lots of annoying popup notifications at inappropriate times. (Beacons that work directly with downloaded smartphone apps can still do this.)

The real game-changer here will be that allow practically anyone to get into the beacon beaming business.

(Read More : tennessean.com/story/money/tech/2015/08/14/beacon-technology-let-us-kiss-app-clutter-goodbye/31726825/)