Retail
Hacking Lumi Deco Nails
On my last trip to Tokyo, I picked up a set of tiny nail stickers called Lumi Deco Nails, released by a Japanese toy company called Takara Tomy Arts in April of 2014. They’re touted as the world’s first nail stickers with embedded LEDs that glow near NFC enabled mobile devices. Best part – no batteries required. […]
Determining Indoor Position using iBeacon
iBeacon provides a convenient solution for indoor proximity detection. Integrated within Apple’s Core Location framework, it supports the following modes: Monitoring – detects if the user is inside predefined region, covered by one or multiple beacons with the same identifier. Ranging – determines how far the user is from a beacon, providing output such as proximity (e.g. […]
Mesh Networks in iOS7
One of the more interesting features to be released as a part of iOS7 was the Multipeer Connectivity framework. The framework allows for the creation of mesh networks through communication between multiple devices in close proximity without having to be connected via traditional wifi. The framework supports connectivity using Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE), infrastructure wifi […]
Three tips for successful retail installations
During my short thirteen years at R/GA, I have been a part of numerous projects in retail, events and branded spaces. In addition to software testing, these projects often include hardware, OS and networking configurations specific to the space. From a development and testing perspective, there are three important requisites for a successful retail project: […]
iBeacon Primer Part II: iBeacon vs. Geofencing
In Part I of our iBeacon series my colleague Andy Hawkes introduced the concept of iBeacons. My team and I have also been playing around with the creative possibilities of this new technology and testing its technical limitations. On our floor we’ve configured a Raspberry Pi as an iBeacon and have been working with at least one […]
iBeacon Primer Part I: Mythbusting
Since Apple stealthily announced the inclusion of iBeacons as a part of iOS7 at WWDC in June 2013 there has been a lot of journalistic hyperbole about iBeacons revolutionising physical retail by sending offers and customised information direct to your phone. The truth is that iBeacons don’t actually transmit content – they transmit a location, enabling […]