Detect customers entering a store

Hi all

I’m trying to figure out if Beacons can be used to detect if a new customer enters a store for the first time? Would they need to have an app installed on their phone before the time in order to work? Can it also detect if the customer returns at a different time and display the last time they visited the store?

Also how would this information be transmitted? Does the beacon capture the data and send it to the store’s PC?

Hope someone can help me out with this.

Thanks

Hi @Herman,

  1. The monitoring technology can help you to detect when you enter/leave a region,
  2. to receive the Estimote beacon’s signal, the phone needs an app’,
  3. with an app’, you can save the last time the beacon was near the phone and remind it to the customer,
  4. you have to make your phone send data to your database (with Internet, other Bluetooth device, …) because beacons only emit signals, they don’t store any information.

Hope it helps :slight_smile:

Hi @Ximun

Thanks for clearing this up so nicely! I helped a lot.

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Hi,

I just want to follow up on the above question as I have something related.

I want the store managers to know the number of visitors who entered their stores without the visitors downloading the apps, but rather beacon signals will be sent to one centralized app… is there anyway we can do this? Can beacons detect bluetooth of a visitors and provide an estimated real number?

Thanks a lot.

Hi @maha30,

the Estimote beacons are only emitting, you can’t (needs verification maybe) retrieve information. Think in the lighthouse metaphor, you don’t know if they are ships, you only signal your position (that’s why the Google protocol is named Eddystone :slight_smile:).

Thanks a lot… you gave me a clue where to go next :blush:

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What would happen if the visitor does not have a downloaded app, but their Bluetooth is switched on?

Will they receive anything?

Is it possible that when their Bluetooth is switched on that they can be directed to a page to download the specific app?

Hey @Herman,

enabling the Bluetooth does not affect the user experience, the customer will receive no notification. You have few options:

  • use an app’ to handle the Bluetooth discoveries,
  • use the Eddystone-URL feature to broadcast a web-site address (the customer has to enable the position permission and have a connection).

Hey!
I am creating an app that requires me to send some information to the cloud when a device enters the range of the beacon.
How can we do that?