Beacons can be used to display notifications on nearby devices. You can do it with apps or without them, and the differences were in more details explained in our guide to promoting your business with beacons. Whichever way you choose, you want your campaigns to be tailored to a users’ current locations and as personalized as possible. It’s called geofencing and can be easily implemented with the Estimote stack.
Geofencing is widely used across many industries to define a geographic boundary. Then, once this “virtual barrier” is established, you can set up triggers that send a text message, email alert, or app notification when a mobile device enters (or exits) the specified area. If you’re interested to know more about the topic, read our article on monitoring.
Estimote beacons come with a default Broadcasting Power which can be adjusted easily with the Estimote cloud or the Estimote app. The range can be as long as 200 meters (655 feet) for Location Beacons and Location Beacons with UWB. The minimum range will be somewhere around 1.5 meters (5 feet), depending also on the multitude of factors. Read more about the physics of beacons on our blog.
Here are some examples of using geofencing:
- a beacon on a shelf in a store that sends notifications to people passing by or displays rich content within an app
- a beacon placed behind a piece of art which gives clients additional information as they approach the object, through a notification or an app
- a beacon by the entrance which enables an app to detect when a particular employee enters an office and upload this information to the servers
- a beacon placed by the entrance of a business that prompts an app to greet the visitors or sends a notification to the people passing by
- a beacon on the checkout desk which enables an app to detect a visit of a particular client and puts on the screen the details of their loyalty program
- a beacon placed by the exit of a store which prompts an app to issue a receipt and charge the client’s credit card.
Use cases are virtually unlimited once your clients have an app compatible with beacons. To get started, get our SDK for either iOS or Android and read our Developer Docs. Some of the solutions above can be also achieved with no app solutions such as Eddystone-URL and Here & Now.