Technology is moving at a fast pace as is mobile app development along with the integration of artificial intelligence. With the use of iBeacons, developers are no longer limited to using their beacons in a single place or using them within their apps. iBeacon Australia are an emerging technology, and they are very useful. iBeacons come with a long list of amazing benefits.
They allow people to be more precise in location-based services, which will increase efficiency and reduce costs because it will be easier to locate someone who needs help. They also offer convenience because they don’t require the person seeking help to maintain contact with an operator from one place or another.
What is an iBeacon?
Also called location beacons or an indoor positioning system, they are small devices that use bluetooth technology to send signals to mobile devices. These signals will let your phone know the distance and relative direction of where you can find that iBeacon. The technology is just one of many that is used in the process of detecting the proximity of bluetooth-enabled devices to one another.
And since iBeacon Australia aren’t just for iPhones, Android phones with Bluetooth built in can use this technology as well.
The first thing to remember is iBeacons are small devices that transmit Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signals. Smart devices like the iPhone 11, iPads with iOS 14 or higher along with the latest Android phones that run Android 10 or higher can receive these signals, which means iBeacons can be used to trigger events in mobile apps if you know how to work with them.
These events could be anything from showing coupons or launching other apps on your phone, but they depend on your creativity and imagination as well as how you implement them into your app – all of which we will see below.
15 Clever Uses of iBeacons for App Developers – iBeacon Australia
Some of these uses are great for grabbing peoples’ attention or creating a compelling interaction in your app, while others are more creative ways to use iBeacons to help you solve problems.
Here are some creative examples of how iBeacon technology can be used in your mobile apps:
1) Alerts
If you have a fast-food restaurant, iBeacon Australia could be placed near tables where customers place orders. The device would then notify your mobile app that someone is sitting somewhere with an order ready, for example instead of sending push notifications to all tables (and raising costs), this beacon could broadcast its unique ID (UID) via the BLE signal to your mobile app.
This would help the app know that someone is seated at that specific table, then it would give you an option to send push notifications that could be customised for your customers based on their orders. Another example of where this could be helpful is if you are running a service company, you can use iBeacons to let your customers know when their vehicles are ready.
2) Beacon-based Location Tracking
As mentioned earlier, iBeacon Australia can transmit Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signals and they do not need to be close to each other or within range of a Wi-Fi or cellular network. Since they can transmit at a distance of close to 100 feet, the signals can pass through walls and even track people who are completely inside a building.
So, in an app you might have a beacon in a particular location – say in front of your store or office window, for example – it could notify the app when someone passes by or walks by. Being able to detect when someone comes and goes from your location makes it much easier to track customers in a store. This is also why you can see iBeacons being used in malls and stores that want to know if people have stopped by their locations.
3) Making Candy Wrapper Snaps
This app uses beacons to help you remember what candies you got at the store. This is actually something that could actually happen in real life. When you walk into a store, the store employees need to give you a specific kind of candy for your kids or set out candies in your favourite flavour. And because of this, every time they give out candy it would allow them to scan the items (and include them in their app) and keep track of what’s left each week across all stores.
To do this, first they should find ways to use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons that can connect to smartphones and then transmit information about that particular item through signals. You can also see how useful beacons can be for a store that has a big variety of candies and they want to know which is most popular with its customers, so the app can use iBeacon or Bluetooth Low Energy signals to detect which customers are most frequent customers.
4) Notifying Visitors About Events
iBeacons could also be used to send out timely reminders about events that happen in a specific place. An example of this is where you have an app for restaurants. You could have a beacon placed at the entrance of your restaurant that sends out a signal when there are free reservations available.
After receiving the signal, which could be in the form of an iBeacon, your app would then send out push notifications to let people know about their availability. Another example that can help in running businesses might be when you have a business with cash registers. Instead of having employees at every register, you could use iBeacons to determine if there is someone waiting by each one to help customers with their purchases.
5) Finding Your Way Around
With apps being so popular these days, iBeacons can also be used to help users find their way through places they are visiting. For example, if you go to a restaurant and visit it multiple times, you can use an iBeacon to send out signals every time you go back which would let the app know so it can generate a checklist of all the items you ordered.
In a mall for example, iBeacons can help you find your way to the nearest Starbucks, despite the chaotic mess of people. Or maybe you’re hungry and want some chicken wings — if they had those in the Elmont Forum Shopping Centre in Perth, you could get your cravings sorted. iBeacons can help you find them on your phone by freeing up your hands and eyes to order wings and drink coffee.
6) Shipment Notifications
The same way iBeacons could be used in malls and stores to determine which customers visited a store or visited specific places, they can also detect if a box has been shipped from the company’s warehouse.
In this example, a beacon is placed at a certain location where a customer takes their product for shipment to another location where they have shown interest. When the box is shipped, the beacon would then send out a signal to your app that your package is finally on its way.
7) Restaurant/Bar Betting Apps
If you are running a restaurant or bar, you can use iBeacon Australia to notify people in your place when it’s time for them to pay their bills. Another ingenious way of using beacons for this example is that you can set up betting games in your place where people wait until it’s their turn to pay and the winners get free drinks for their wait.
This would motivate them to stay and play with each other and make it more interactive instead of waiting in line and letting everyone get bored and go home without paying (which happens a lot).
8) Notifying Customers When Their Order Is Ready
If you have a fast-food restaurant, you can use iBeacons to let your customers know when their food is ready and that their order has been taken. This would help them know that they don’t have to stand in line and wait for the order they placed and they could just go to the location where it is waiting for them.
Other than fast food restaurants, this would be useful in so many other places such as hospitals, airlines, malls and shopping centers, hotels, service companies and so on.
9) Making Location-based Games
Last, but not least, you can also use beacons to support location-based games. This is especially useful for kids because it would give them incentive to go outside and go on adventures or just to play in the neighbourhood.
With iBeacon Australia, they would be able to play games where they can find hidden treasure chests or eggs that they could find at their favourite places around the neighbourhood. They could also use their smartphones as playing cards which would help them play games against other players around the world who are using iBeacons.
10) Making New Year Cards Pop Up
When you send out cards to people for new year celebrations, the iBeacon can help send out notifications to each person saying “Happy New Year”. The app itself can also be used for this purpose.
This app is especially useful for people who like sending physical cards to their friends or family members because it allows them to select which ones will get their greetings first. This is also something that would make the act of sending physical cards more exciting and fun if it could include an interactive element like this.
11) Making Location-based Artwork
Another great iBeacon Australia app example is using beacons to make artwork for people. Your app could tell other people where you are so they could give their artistic input in the form of a photo or a video of what your artwork would look like.
This would make it possible for artists to actually create an interactive artwork that people could receive at their homes and enjoy. iBeacon technology has a lot of potential and it can be useful in a lot of ways which will give you more details about how they work and what they can do.
12) Finding Local Deals
Your app could also be used to help customers find local deals that are offered in stores. They would receive relevant offers like discounts based on what they do and where they go.
Finding this kind of relevant information is difficult, but with iBeacon Australia, you could make sure that you are sending the right offers to the right locations. This way, your customers will be more likely to enter your store or locations since they know they will get a good deal on the items they need.
13) Making A Way-finding App
iBeacons can also be used for way-finding apps so users can easily use them to navigate their way through a store or a mall without getting lost. Once you see what values you would like to enter, the app itself will suggest appropriate items for your liking. The app can also be used as a guide to the store and other relevant information.
Also, you could use this app to help people find specific items they need in the store. For example, if you want to help people find jeans that are easy to move in, you could just let them know that certain jeans are best for moving around.
14) Making An Interactive Farm
If you have a farm or agricultural location, you can make an interactive app where users can see what’s going on there and learn about relevant information like how various crops grow and what their uses are. They can also receive notifications about local weather conditions and other weather related news there.
This way, people who visit your farm will get more out of the experience than just seeing pretty plants. They have more entertainment options so they can learn about what goes on there. This would also help them support their local economy by buying local produce instead of importing it from elsewhere.
15) Interactive Portable Art Gallery Apps
iBeacon technology can also be used to make an interactive art gallery application. If you have artworks that are available for rent or purchase, the application will let you know if there are any available at the moment and where they are located so you can go there and buy them.
This is a great way to get more people interested in the art you have for sale. This adds another layer of interactivity that would make it fun for people to buy or rent your art pieces.
iBeacons will Become Standard in Future
All in all, the future for iBeacon technology looks very bright. It’s still an emerging technology, but if you think about it, you can see how useful it is and how many ways you can use it to help people in their daily life. If you think about it, there are so many places where beacons could be useful and they would likely become the standard way of interacting with computers in the near future. So if you like having exciting new things that will enhance your business or your customers’ experiences using your business or service, then definitely learn more about these cool little devices by reading this article.
While a lot of people think that iBeacons are only being used to track customers and give away free stuff, it could have a lot of uses in other areas as well. In the coming years, iBeacons will continue to grow and become more apparent in our daily lives. The fact that they can also be used to help people find their way around places, notify them when their package is ready or create interactive games is just scratching the surface of what these tiny Radio-frequency identification devices (RFID) can do.
