Can Beacons be used to generate NEW customers?

I am a newbie into this field. I am marketing apps and mobile wallets that are or will be configured to use beacons. And I have a few basic and simple questions below:

  1. Please confirm that Estimote beacons can be used with both mobile apps as well as with mobile wallet passes?
  2. Please tell me what an Apple phone and/or Android phone must have configured on or off for a beacon to detect it and send a push notification?
  3. Will a beacon detect a mobile phone and send a push notification if all of 2 above is set properly even though the user has NOT downloaded an app or a Pass onto his/her phone?Will
  4. Will a beacon detect a mobile phone and send a push notification if all of 2 above is set properly AND the user has downloaded a mobile wallet (Apple Pay or Android Pay or Google Wallet or Samsung Pay) yet has not downloaded one of our passes that work off of the mobile wallet platform?

Thank you.

  1. Please confirm that Estimote beacons can be used with both mobile apps as well as with mobile wallet passes?

Confirmed.

  1. Please tell me what an Apple phone and/or Android phone must have configured on or off for a beacon to detect it and send a push notification?

Bluetooth needs to be on, the application (Apple Wallet app in case of wallet passes) must be allowed to show notifications, and to access Location Services.

  1. Will a beacon detect a mobile phone and send a push notification if all of 2 above is set properly even though the user has NOT downloaded an app or a Pass onto his/her phone?

No.

  1. Will a beacon detect a mobile phone and send a push notification if all of 2 above is set properly AND the user has downloaded a mobile wallet (Apple Pay or Android Pay or Google Wallet or Samsung Pay) yet has not downloaded one of our passes that work off of the mobile wallet platform?

No.


However, you might want to look into Physical Web and Eddystone-URL beacon format. Google Chrome, if installed on the user’s device, and the user has enabled Physical Web, will show URLs broadcast by the Eddystone-URL beacons. It could be a URL pointing to a web site, but also to a mobile pass, or to an app. It’s the best way to use beacons to surface content that the user might be interested in, without them having to pre-install an app or a pass.

You can read more about Google Chrome’s support for Physical Web here:

Estimote Proximity and Location Beacons are fully compatible with Eddystone-URL and Physical Web.

why can’t a beacon send a push notification with out an app?

What’s possible on smartphones is defined by Android and iOS, not by beacons. And both Android and iOS don’t support beacon notifications without an app.

… or actually, Android kind of does, in a limited way. It’s called “Nearby Notifications”—you can register your beacon in Google’s Beacon Cloud, and then if somebody has Nearby Notifications enabled on their Android device (note that it’s disabled by default), a notification associated with that beacon (as defined in the Google Beacon Cloud) will show up in their Notification Drawer when they’re in range of the beacon. Note however that such notification is a so-called “low-priority notification”, i.e., it won’t cause the phone to buzz or make a sound, and it won’t appear on the lock screen.

You can learn more about Nearby Notifications here:

and

“Introducing Nearby: Physical proximity within and without apps” talk from this year’s Google I/O conference: