LONDON – The 2013 was the year of Big Data and Bitcoin, topics that currently have influence on our life, nowadays, and more and more in the near future. But now it’s time for another B: Beacon. It’s a topic that somebody has started to speak about it few months ago, but now IT experts and investors are taking a look on this theme with more and more attractiveness.
As a reminder, Beacon is an indoor positioning system developed by Apple to trigger and send relevant information to your smartphone when you are walking inside a shop. Beacon work on Bluetooth low energy to detect when a customer’s phone is close to a sensor.
There are many potential real world use cases, and this is what makes Beacon interesting. For example, when you enter a clothing shop, you can receive a push notification with all the latest promos. When you enter a coffee shop, you could get the brew of the week on your phone. Or a shopping mall could display a map to help you find the right store. It could power a new payment system as well, essentially a Square Wallet on steroids.
Hardware startup Sensorberg just raised $1 million (€750,000) from Technologie Holding GmbH and undisclosed angel investors. Part of the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator in Berlin, Sensorberg is one of the most promising iBeacon startups in Europe.
The hard part is to convince big retail chains to use iBeacon. These customers have the potential to develop a good mobile app, get a large user base and integrate iBeacon features. In the U.S., Macy’s is experimenting with iBeacon. Apple will take advantage of its technology as well.
But for now, it remains a novelty. It can go either way and become a massive retail technology or end up like QR codes. Remember QR codes (A.A.)