Benefits and Types of Beacon Technology

Beacon technology has come a long way and proved to be much more useful than the conventional methods, which most people rely upon. Beacon technology is easy to deploy, cost-effective, and it is one of the most popular ways to engage customers. Here, we will discuss what beacon technology is, how it works, the types, and benefits.

Let’s start!

What Is Beacon Technology Anyway?

Beacons are small, wireless transmitters that use low-energy, Bluetooth technology to detect human presence nearby and trigger preset actions to deliver informational and personalized experiences. 

These technologies interconnect and send information to smart devices, which make location-based searches and interactions much simpler and more accurate. It can be compared to the lighthouse that sends light signals to the ships nearby.

How Do Beacons Work?

Beacons are simple and easy to use. When a user walks past an area where a positioning system with beacons is set up, the nearest beacon broadcasts the identifier. Then, the user’s device, usually a mobile, sees the signal and marks your place.

To use beacons, you need: 

• A beacon device

• Mobile app

• User’s permission

The users get to decide if they want to receive beacon-based notifications and use your positioning system. Users can opt-out by turning off Bluetooth because beacon technology works only with a smartphone and mobile app. 

Bluetooth Low Energy Beacon 

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is what Beacon technology relies on to send out messages at regular intervals. BLE is similar to Wi-Fi in the sense that it allows devices to communicate with each other. The best part being it requires low amounts of energy.

Types Of Beacons

There is a wide array of beacons available. They vary by size, use case, battery life, and level of resistance to exogenous factors. The most common types of beacons:

Standard beacon looks like a small Wi-Fi router and works best for proximity solutions and indoor tracking.

Portable/small beacon is the size of a credit card and suits asset tracking and proximity solutions.

USB beacon is portable and small, the size of a flash drive for asset tracking and proximity solutions.

Video beacon — Bluetooth device, plugged into the back of a screen to deliver contextual visual information and digital signage.

AI beacon is a machine learning-driven algorithm that can detect different movements and gestures.

Sticker beacon is the smallest type of beacon and it is used for asset tracking.

Parent beacon is the size of a big Wi-Fi router, used to track other beacons, gather their data, send it to the cloud, and so on.

Dedicated beacon is the best solution for indoor tracking and proximity solutions in harsh environments because it is resistant to water, antistatic, dust, UV, and other exogenous factors. 

Benefits of Beacon Technology

Boost Business

Most people use their mobile devices to make purchase decisions. Businesses take advantage of this to develop their marketing and communication strategies. 

Retail stores leverage location-based beacon transmitters to have real-time interaction with their customers. Through beacon technology, businesses can offer personalized promotions, provide navigation of their locations, and inform shoppers about limited in-store offers. 

Enhanced Marketing

To foster customer engagement and also cater to their needs, businesses rely on emerging technology. With beacons, you can offer personalized location-based advertisements, which can serve as an avenue for driving sales. 

You will be given an opportunity to gather data that will help provide a more personalized experience. Through beacon, you can create meaningful experiences, as well as develop creative solutions for your customers.

Enhance Your Assets and Inventory Management

Bluetooth beacons can identify an item’s location and send updates about equipment that needs maintenance. With beacon technology, you can track your asset and inventory without any glitches.

Beacon Technology: Advantages and Disadvantages 

Advantages:

1. Cost-effective and easy to implement: Beacons are more cost-effective than other cutting-edge technologies. They are also easy and quick to deploy, especially with existing applications, as beacon technology comes with backend management tools and a software development kit (SDK). 

2. Personalized customer experiences: You can send personalized notifications and advertisements to your customers with beacon technology. Businesses can design their offer deals specific to each customer, based on information provided by beacon technology. This will help make precise recommendations to increase the likelihood of conversations and purchases, as well as customer engagement.

3. Beacons are reliable devices and they can receive signals from most places, including underground areas or thick walls. Additionally, some suppliers consider proximity solutions for exogenous factors.

4. Beacon technology is supported by most modern devices, hence you will have a vast amount of coverage.

Disadvantages:

1. Users may opt-out: User’s permission is required for most beacon-based solutions. There is a subtle difference between “cool” and “eerie.” Customers are aware that businesses have their information; nevertheless, they do not like to be engulfed or bombarded with marketing communications. Users may opt-out by turning off their Bluetooth.

2. In most cases, beacons rely on installed business apps for beacon technology to communicate with the customer’s device. For example, if you visit Tim-Hortons and do not have the Tim-Hortons app-enabled, you may not be able to receive beacon communications with customized offers.

3. Since beacon marketing is limited to the BLE signal; if a customer does not have Bluetooth enabled, beacon technology will not be able to identify them. This automatically limits the data businesses can collect from customers. 

So, What’s the Point?

Beacon technology encourages engagement and interaction with customers and if used wisely, the data garnered can be beneficial to the business, in terms of their marketing strategy and decisions. There is a massive potential of beacon technology in marketing and location-based technology. As a data-gathering tool, beacon offers businesses an opportunity to better understand their customers and to enhance their algorithm.  

The focus may have initially been on the retail industry, but as the technology matures, more sectors will utilize beacon technology to cater to customers in more ways, as well as aid their day-to-day activities. And since beacon technology is relatively inexpensive, compared to other technologies, businesses can adopt the technology with very little risk. 

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The 6 Best Software Solutions

Like anything, software development has regulations and trends that have been followed for months, and then before you know it, there could be a whole new set of trends for the following month. 

In the software market especially, it is integral that we stay current with the top trends of the industry.

Selecting the correct technology solution for your software is vital, since it is one of the keys for a successful and profitable business.

The 6 Best Solutions

1. The MEAN Solution

MEAN = MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, and Node.js

• This is the best known tech solution of the year

• It is a complete JavaScript solution – with only one language throughout

• This allows you the convenience of reusing code for an entire app, which eliminates the constant need for revamping

• MEAN is also completely free with open resources to assist such an active community

• MEAN is an ideal solution for the cloud – since it is so flexible

• This solution can be set up incredibly easy since it has its own web server

• Since it uses a single JavaScript group, it can be adaptable

2. The MERN Solution

MERN = MongoDB, Express.js, React, Node.js

• MERN has a lot of the same aspects as MEAN by just replacing Angular with React

• React utilizes the Virtual DOM, meaning that any alterations that need to be made can be achieved seamlessly

• React also utilizes JSX, which is an altered version of JavaScript – which allows for component work

• React allows you to build top of the line, single page applications

• 2020, has been all about improvements: with UI MERN stands to increase

• The one downside to working with React is developers have realized they have a limited base functionality

REACT is a library, NOT a framework, and this is why developers will end up using additional services.

3. The MEVN Solution

MEVN = MongoDB, Express.js, Vue.js, Node.js

• Vue.js is a front-end scheme

• This scheme has grown in popularity over the last few years and is expected to continue growing

• Vue.js is a lightweight system in relation to Angular

• This system provides you with simple out-of-the-box functions – that can be extended using additional services

• Vue.js is a compilation of the best aspects from both Angular and React, giving you maximum performance

4. The LAMP Solution

LAMP = Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP 

• Classified as a time-assessed solution of technologies

• It is one of the most common ways for web applications to be delivered

• One of the first open-source software solutions – still utilized regularly

• Because it is so stable, and simple, LAMP is the premium choice for creating new personalized web applications

• LAMP is so efficient, it has the ability to manage compelling pages where the information changes every time it is loaded

• LAMP has the ability to be interchanged

• By substituting “Linux to Microsoft Windows” creating WAMP

• Or by substituting “Linux to MAC OS” creating MAMP

• LAMP has one of the most established software ecosystems, since it has been around for over a decade

5. The Serverless Solution

• This year has been the year for creating a cloud framework, in simpler terms – go serverless

• Computing on serverless platforms has given us the opportunity and tools to make the framework management more user-friendly

• This also allows for updates to happen overnight

• “AWS Lambda” is one of the first serverless platforms

• Google Cloud also provides significant input to the serverless computing processes

6. Flutter the Web

• Known as multi-platform development

• Utilizes the same UI and Business knowledge on every platform

• Flutter, allows you to not focus on distribution, enabling you to fix bugs and new features without having to accommodate for speed issues

• Applying a regulated software solution is integral, especially when building software or an application

• A one-size-fits-all approach will not work with choosing a tech solution

• You must find a set of tools that allows for special advantages for your application

Keeping up with all the newest trends is a lot of information. 

However, it can be done by checking daily for any new trends that may have come to light overnight. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about software!

5 Best Features of Microsoft’s Advanced Threat Protection Software

Security is one, if not the top most important priority a business should have. Without it, imminent threats would constantly be another burden the business would have to deal with. Microsoft offers various security platforms, one of those being Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection. Read on to learn how to protect your company from cybersecurity threats. 

Breaking it Down   

This Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is a cloud-based email server, which prevents viruses, spoofing, and malware to occur to your organization. It’s one of the features included in Microsoft’s enterprise E5 and business premium offers. The basic starting price is $2.60 per user- a low cost, for high protection! 

Besides the cost-effective advantages, here are the following features to sell you on it even further: 

Top 5 Features of ATP: 

1. Attachments 

This ensures any attachments coming through to your business emails are safe and not malicious or virus-prone. This means, whenever someone in your organization receives an email with an attachment, this safety feature will automatically test the attachment to ensure it doesn’t affect your business. 

If everything is normal, the attachment will open and if not, it will be deleted. 

2. Links 

Nowadays, hacks and general cyber-attacks often occur through links. This is obviously especially prominent from those links you get from strange third-party sources. It is evident to most to not click on these links, but mistakes do happen. 

But that’s why ATP provides a safe link feature. If the link from the email does get clicked on, then this feature simultaneously checks it before allowing you to open it. If it is unsafe, it will be deemed as such and blocked. Otherwise, if it is safe, it will open as normal. 

3. Spoofing 

Spoofing, although often associated with a negative connotation, is also necessary at times. For example: an assistant speaking on your behalf, lead generation, sales emails, and more. Of course, you can’t do it all yourself so others within your organization, or those who you’ve hired need to ‘spoof’ on your behalf. 

For this exact reason, it is crucial to not limit all types of spoofing. The concern should be that it is legitimate, authorized spoofing that occurs instead of those malicious spoof emails. This is why ATP offers a spoof intelligence feature that ensures your organization is protected against that issue.

Your business is then able to configure certain spoof filters to detect differences from real and fake spoof email activity. 

4. Anti-Phishing 

Thanks to machine learning and various impersonation algorithms, ATP is able to provide an anti-phishing feature to protect your company from phishing occurrences. This feature allows for verification of any and all incoming emails in order to detect any suspicious activity.

After your security team has integrated the ATP, this feature will be automatically applied. Based on the way your team has implemented this, the anti-phishing feature will check certain actions and restrict any phishing queries. 

5. Sharepoint, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive 

The three platforms listed above are the most used within business settings in order to increase collaboration and share ideas easily and efficiently. However, just because it is Microsoft-based, security features still need to be implemented to ensure a safe and secure environment. 

ATP is able to block any malicious activity attempting to immerse itself into your team site or platform. Once surely identified as malicious, the file for example, will be locked and restricted from anyone being able to open it. Thus, even if not deleted, it will not pose any threat. 

Each file within Sharepoint, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive is scanned by ATP in order to pick out any suspicious documents that may be lurking about. 

Time to Secure Your Business?

Real-time protection is more important than ever in today’s new technologically advanced world. If you don’t have a security team, or are looking for help in integrating a security platform into your organization, get in touch with us today!

Secure your business and don’t worry about the constant external cybersecurity threats that exist.