One alternative that can be used to the project is the use of a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) device. BLE technology it is really important in these days because it has a low power consumption (it can be last months or a year), it has a range of 15-30 meters and a data rate of 1 Mbps which can be helpful in the development of our idea. In these days, it is more broadly adopted because now every smartphone has BLE technology on it. Apple was the first one on implement this technology in their devices (iOS), but now Android and Windows have also adopted this technology in their devices.

The proposal would be, instead of using GPS on the smartphone to “check-in” in a venue, there can be an antenna in the venue where people can connect and receive the points, it is more accurate than GPS location and it is really cheap to buy one of these devices. For example, the website “PassKit” sells beacons for a price of $20 – $25 USD (https://passkit.com/ibeacon-devices/), another alternative would be the “Light Blue Bean” at a price of $30 USD (https://punchthrough.com/bean/). The next video shows how iBeacons work and where it can be used.

In order to apply these technology in our project it is necessary to affiliate with the venues to install the hardware and then one a user in the venue connects to the device, via Bluetooth, it can send the information to the cloud to get the points or reward for that particular establishment. The venues can also take advantage of this technology. For example, besides to alert a person who is walking close by how many points/reward he can earn by consuming in that restaurant but also providing the complete menu on their smartphones. Even this is not inside the scope of our project it can be included in the future with an affiliation with the venues.

A real world example of a company using this kind of technology it is the company “Inconeme” (http://www.iconeme.com/). The company install a VMBeacon (which is a mixture of Apple’s iBeacon with their own technology”) into a mannequin to transmit information to shoppers about the clothes on display, via their smartphones. Some of the features that the app has are: shoppers get alerts, see photos of the clothes, find the location in the store, get discounts, earn rewards, save to look for later or share with friends. The following video shows how their application works.

For this reason, the use of Bluetooth Low Energy devices is easy, cheap, accurate and feasible. Thanks to the adoption of this technology by smartphones, the number of applications that use beacons is becoming more important because the battery doesn’t need to be changed that frequently and they can reach to most of the people (except if it is too old) with a smartphone.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/26/vmbeacon-is-wearables-for-mannequins-sends-clothes-info-to-customers/ . R. Want, B.Schilit, D. Laskowski. “Bluetooth LE find its Niche”, 2013.