What's Beacon Technology? And How Will It Disrupt The Networking Space?

BeaconsInSpace is a Boston-based disrupter in the API/networking space, utilizing beacon technology to create contextual and hyperlocal applications.

What exactly is a beacon?

’A beacon is a device that’s constantly transmitting an identifier through the air via Bluetooth. There are apps on your phone that can pick up that identifier and associate it with certain contextual information,’ said CEO Ben Smith.

Right now, beacons are often used for push notifications and advertising in retail spaces, but Smith envisions broader (and less irritating) use cases for the technology.

’We’re seeing transit stations, restaurants, bars -- all types of places that utilize those beacons. So what BeaconsInSpace does is we go out and aggregate all these different fragmented beacon networks that are being deployed by hundreds of companies around the world, and we provide access to those beacons to developers via a simple API,’ Smith said.

Through the BeaconsInSpace solution, developers can access about 10,000 beacons across the U.S., France, and Canada. With access to a back-end dashboard, developers can see where beacons are located and how much time they spend in a specific location like a café, among other information.

Smith sees opportunity for development of apps related to automatic check-in, if/then triggers, venue visit tracking and personalization.

Pricing for the solution is based on the number of monthly active users. Apps with fewer than 10,000 monthly active users can access the solution for free.