Anyone use iBeacons?

[lowercaseperson]

Hey all,

My wife owns a vintage clothing hobby business and does a lot of local open air markets for fun. Doesn't make a ton of money, but it's what she likes to do with her time off. Anyways she goes through obscene numbers of business cards every month - and I imagine most of them end up in the trash, or someone's purse for eternity.

Got me thinking this AM as she was frantically looking for another stack of cards before leaving for the market - could I set up an iBeacon for her tent?

My main questions are as follows:

1. I don't want it to be really intrusive to people walking by - could I make it so people just tap their phones by it or maybe it only alerts them within like 2-3 feet?

2. Is there anyway to use an iBeacon to alert Android phones

3. I'm pretty tech savvy - I have a Synology Diskstation all setup on the cloud and what not - but no real experience coding. Could I set up a beacon?

4. Any suggestions on hardware?

That's all I can think of right now. Anyone have thoughts/experience on proximity based advertising?

 

[Menel]

No.

IBeacon can trigger a specific app, then that app processes based on your phone's location and the unique identifier in the iBeacon

That's all they do, very incredibly simple devices, broadcast a complex code, but no internal it processing.

So she needs her own business app published on the App Store. Or maybe partner/contract with a consortium of indie artsy people.

 

[lowercaseperson]

Thanks Menel - my wife doesn't have her own app, that's not even really an option. But she does a lot of on line selling trough Etsy. Is there any way to use iBeacon with Etsy's app? I know a lot of people at her market have that app. Kinda a long shot, but I don't really know a lot about the technology.

Another direction I was thinking. Not quite as easy for customers as I was thinking iBeacons would be, is QR codes. Anyone have experience with them?

 

[Menel]

Thanks Menel - my wife doesn't have her own app, that's not even really an option. But she does a lot of on line selling trough Etsy. Is there any way to use iBeacon with Etsy's app? I know a lot of people at her market have that app. Kinda a long shot, but I don't really know a lot about the technology.



Another direction I was thinking. Not quite as easy for customers as I was thinking iBeacons would be, is QR codes. Anyone have experience with them?

Etsy would have to deploy an iBeacon system. Ive not heard of such, but I'm not well clued in to that market. Hopefully its only a matter of time before they or someone like them does.

QR codes could be perfect, but from what Ive personally seen, most ignore them.

 

[lowercaseperson]

Etsy would have to deploy an iBeacon system. Ive not heard of such, but I'm not well clued in to that market. Hopefully its only a matter of time before they or someone like them does.

Yeah, I doubt Etsy has integrated anything yet. Seems like I'm always just ahead of the technology curve - but not savvy enough to bridge the gap myself Could be a huge boon for local Etsy sellers to integrate iBeacons into their locally sponsored Etsy sales.

QR codes could be perfect, but from what Ive personally seen, most ignore them.

My experience has been the same - I don't even have a QR reader app. I guess I'll just have to wait until it all catches up! thanks for the reply though.