Radius Networks Announces RadBeacon X2

Radius Networks announced the new RadBeacon X2 today.  Available immediately, this looks like it could be my beacon of choice.  AA batteries!  Ruggedized, weatherized enclosure!  Simultaneous support for iBeacon and AltBeacon!  It even has screw-tabs for easy, semi-secure, semi-permanent mounting.

Diviner Sprouts New Features!

I'm excited to announce that Diviner has some great new features.  Here's the TLDR version:

• Quick and easy coupons
• Loyalty and Rewards
• Wifi Connector
• Webhooks

Now that that's out of the way, let's take a look at each feature, starting with Coupons.  Diviner has always had the ability to define a Barcode URL to integrate special offers making it a flexible and powerful solution, but for small business owners who don't have fancy POS systems much less IT folk to integrate them, an even-simpler solution was needed.  Well, Diviner now has a "Coupon" offer type.  You still have complete control over the creative like you always have, but now Diviner creates a QR Code view for you.  You simply enter a "Coupon Description" to describe this special offer, then when the coupon is redeemed, the Coupon Description displays again, letting you (or your employee or a volunteer or family member or whoever it is who's accepting the coupon) know what the coupon was for.  Diviner tracks all the relevant redemption stats for you, so you can easily measure the success of any special offer at any time.

"Hey, back up a sec.... if it's a QR Code, how do I read it?  Do I have to buy some new-fangled gadget?"  Good questions.  In both iOS and Android Diviner apps there is now an Offer Scanning Mode.  When engaged, this allows you to scan customer QR Codes right from the device you already own.  There's no special hardware to buy or additional software to install.  I think this is really exciting because it supports what I've come to call "Just-in-time Couponing" (inspired by Just-in-time Compilation).  You can easily create and distribute special offers based on the realtime needs of your business.  Say you operate a fruit stand and the 300 pounds of mangos, which you were certain would sell like hotcakes, is now getting a bit "over-ripe."  Fire-up a Diviner coupon to incentivize your in-bound customers to move those mangos!

Loyalty and Rewards programs work in a similar fashion.  You can now create an offer that represents a customer action and based on the frequency of that action, your customers can accrue fixed rewards or loyalty points.  You can then choose how and where these rewards are redeemed.  Free tacos with the purchase of 2 drinks?  No problem.  27 points to get a free tennis lesson?  Super easy.  Again, just like with Diviner Coupons, all transactions are done through the Offer Scanning Mode, so there's no hardware or software to buy, and all performance metrics are reported in realtime, so you can always see how your programs are performing.

Moving on, how do you, as a small business owner, offer your customers complimentary wifi without also letting the kid in the apartment upstairs bittorrent the latest Jennifer Lawrence archery movie?  Diviner's Wifi Connector eases the pain.  You can keep your network protected and even hidden.  Customers who trigger a Wifi Connector offer according to the proximity and linger time rules you set can then choose to join your wifi network without ever seeing a password.

Lastly, we've introduced the "Webhook" offer (read more about the concept of webhooks here).  I'm probably most excited about this feature.  The vision of Diviner has always been to foster a rich ecosystem of surrounding extensions... custom middleware.... add-ons.... whatever you want to call it, we've always wanted people to extend what we're doing.  Webhooks are another step in that direction.  Rather than acting like a traditional offer within Diviner, webhooks do NOT issue a device notification, they do NOT display any alert text, and they do NOT have any creative.  Instead, webhooks let you define url's that get called on "entry" and "exit" of an offer.  In other words, in the same way that an offer can appear or disappear in the app's inbox can now invisibly trigger external systems of your choosing.  You can also define whether the url should be triggered only once (on entry and exit but not on re-entry...) or if it should happen every time the user enters and exits.  As always, as long as the user has not opted-out, we append the mobile device id that uniquely identifies the device to all outbound requests.  This opens up the doors to all sorts of automated proximity-based possibilities.... hook it to a home automation system to turn on the lights as you enter a room then turn them off as you exit.  Attach it to your favorite events platform to automatically check in users... whatever you want!

Anyway, that's  a lot of text... here are some images of Diviner in action:

Getting Started with StickNFind

The easiest way to get started with Diviner is using Beacon Mode on your iOS device, but if you're looking for a multiple beacon solution, look no further than OfficeDepot/OfficeMax. A few months back while buying a new UPS and some Cat 6 patch cables I spotted StickNFind Bluetooth LE beacons for sale in my local OfficeDepot in the cell phone accessories section.

StickNFind beacons have the advantage of being super small, about the size of a coin, so you can hide them just about anywhere. They can be a bit of a pain to work with if you want to use them as iBeacons... that is unless you have the free BeaconMaker app (android and iOS). With this free app, you can easily configure your StickNFind beacons as iBeacons and even reset ProximityUUIDs, majors, and minors.

Diviner Launches!

I love this quote from Reid Hoffman and I start with it for a reason.... let me first say "embarrassed" is the wrong word. I'm super proud of the work we've done here and I think we have a pretty solid offering for a small bootstrapped startup. That said, there are things I'd like to change and/or improve. But the important thing to realize, and I think this is ultimately Mr. Hoffman's point, there will ALWAYS be things I want to change/improve/replace/tweak. At some point you have to remind yourself that it's all for nought if you don't put the product in customers' hands. So that's where we find ourselves today. Our website is live and our iOS and Android apps are both approved and released. We're ready to put the product in our customers' hands.

Radius Networks introduces AltBeacon

Well, it was bound to happen.  The world needs an open and interoperable standard.  In fact that's what made iBeacon attractive in the first place.  Radius Networks has recently proposed a new, open standard called AltBeacon.  We'd love to see a truly platform-agnostic solution; currently only an Android library has been released, but it's still early days.

In fact just this morning Radius Networks announced the RadBeacon USB (my personal beacon of choice) now supports iBeacon and AltBeacon concurrently!  That's a pretty huge step in bridging the gap.

While we at GalacticWidgets don't support AltBeacon (yet - Diviner isn't even live yet, so it's our priority), we're keeping a watchful eye on it.

Just in from Poland: kontakt.io iBeacon Development Kit

It's been a while since my last post.  I've been tangled up in some bureaucratic hoop-jumping, dotting my i's and crossing my t's and getting various forms notorized, etc.  I'm so close to launching I can taste it... just need to get seals of approval from various powers-that-be.

Anyway, fresh in from Poland is my new Kontakt.io iBeacon Development Kit.  3 beacons in a handy carrying-case.  Kontakt.io is the only beacon maker I've come across so far that let's you choose beacon color and optionally add your own logo/image/branding.  Pretty neat stuff.

Look What Came Today!

More toys!  Today the postman brought me a new beacon to play with.  This time it's the RadBeacon USB from Radius Networks.  My opinion of Radius Networks thus far has been really positive, so it wasn't surprising to see that the RadBeacon USB was good-to-go right out of the box.  They even print the ProximityUUID, major, and minor on the label for you so you don't have to go fumbling with some app to get it - a really nice touch.  I wish all beacon makers would do that **cough** StickNFind **cough**.  I really dig the fact this thing is USB bus powered - no dead batteries! - but we'll see over time if that's really worth the trade-off in terms of ease-of-placement.