Estimote is a beacon company that has taken the technology to a new form factor: stickers. These ‘tiny super beacons’ were announced in August but have just begun to be shipped. The Estimote Stickers have a battery life of around a year and are backwards-compatible with the company’s SDKs, apps and cloud service.
Beacons add more information to areas; for example, they could be used to tell store visitors where to find items, or provide vouchers. The stickers extend that to specific objects, turning them into ‘nearables’; for example, a user’s phone could display reviews about a book they have picked up. As well as ARM processors with flash memory and a Bluetooth Smart controller, the stickers feature sensors for motion and temperature; Estimote says that a sticker could alert a phone when a bottle of wine in the fridge is at the right temperature!
Cisco and the Guggenheim Museum are among the partners trialling Estimote Stickers now. Watch a video at http://tinyurl.com/mf4fngb.
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Sticking one of these to every item in a store is probably a bit ambitious, but I approve of the concept! (TA)
