iBeacons, Apple’s cool indoor positioning technology in iOS 7 based on power-sipping Bluetooth 4.0 networking, is seeing some strong adoption across a variety of industries.
Grocery stores are embracing the technology and retailers like Macy’s and Apple’s own retail stores have deployed tiny iBeacon transmitters to put useful information on users’ Lock screens as they move around the store.
Theme parks, music festivals and sports venues are increasingly using iBeacons and one use case even involves giving bar patrons free access to Newsstand magazines.
The latest iBeacon implementation has to do with the classroom: a new BeHere app by a Brazilian company called Beelieve (free download) automatically takes attendance as students enter the classroom, using iBeacon transmitters…
How does this work?
Well, provided students have installed the app on their iPhone or iPod touch devices and approved the service, teachers can determine who’s attending the class thanks to iBeacons’ proximity-based wizardry (via MacMagazine.br).
Students don’t even have to fire up the app in order to acknowledge their presence – it all happens automagically as iBeacon transmitter automatically detect iOS devices in their proximity.
Check out the promo clip.
“Teachers can automatically identify which students are accessing the classroom, and easily manage help requests using an ordered line, always up-to-date,” explains Beelieve. The app presents teachers with the attending students’ profile images that can be tapped to reveal names.
The latest 1.1 update has added several improvements for iOS 7.1, bug fixes and new features like the ability to change a profile picture. It’s interesting that the BeHere app will work as a teacher when installed on iPads.
More information is available at the Beelieve website.
You can download BeHere free in the App Store.
iOS 7.0 or later is required.