4 ms·

I'm really excited about the possibilities that devices like this will bring. Once there is an easy and affordable way to facilitate indoor location we will see

by msabath 13y ago

I'm really excited about the possibilities that devices like this will bring. Once there is an easy and affordable way to facilitate indoor location we will see many cool things. There are a few players in this space and retail is/should be interested in this. The hard thing to do as a retail operation is to use this in a way that provides real value. The last thing that I want as a consumer is another interaction on par with SMS messaging. But, if this allowed the retailer to gather information on the consumers wants and needs and provided valuable information back to the consumer that enhanced the shopping experience, it could be amazing. I think it is smart to start with retail, but this has applications all over the place. I think the price point is extremely important. But once the price comes down and consumers and businesses can afford to purchase many of these, we will see many cool applications. If this was matched up with an easy way to program them, like IFTTT, home adoption would take off. It could really change the face of home automation. In short, I'm excited and have preordered.

jimiasty 13y ago
The retail applications are very obvious - imagine you walk in to IKEA and approach sofa you like the post. You want to buy it, so you take a phone out of your pocket, unlock it and BAM - so you the picture of the sofa, you could add it to the cart or read more about it. If you go browsing for other furnitures some of them like a pillow might notify you that it fits to the sofa you have in the cart. No more wooden pencils and obscure Swedish names you need to write down :P We posted a blog post about it http://blog.estimote.com/post/57087827916/wooden-pencils-are-not-the-future-of-shopping http://blog.estimote.com/post/57087827916/wooden-pencils-are...
- steverb 13y ago
  How about smaller Mom and Pop style retail. I'm picturing the scenario where you're waiting for the sale rep to get free to ring you up and poking around the store in the meantime. Can we generate a heat map for the sales guy so he knows what you were looking at in the display racks? That would be pretty awesome.
solistice 13y ago
I personally think this thing will be misused to the hilt, but there are ways they can add real value to a brick and mortar shopping experience. Imagine you walked into a larger store, for example Walmart. As you walk in, the estimote app loads the wallmart app temporarily over the instore wifi. The app shows you a map of the store, which shows what products can be bought in which aisle, making your shopping experience much faster. As you approach the cash register, it acts like a concierge and tells you which register is the fastest one (some airports do this with a dedicated person, which directs people to different lines. It yields considerable speed ups). As you leave the store, the walmart app is removed from your phone. Estimote now shows you the nearest estimote enabled stores. That's the good scenario. Now to the bad. You go to the mall. As you approach it, you phone starts buzzing like it's mad. You think it's a call, so you pick up your phone. Nope, its Footlocker trying to sell you their new line of shoes at a 10% discount. Fine, but you're not looking for shoes. As you walk through the mall, your phone goes of wantonly, displaying ads for stores that are on the other side of the mall. Obviously, they don't know how to configure their estimotes. You can't walk for 5 meters without an estimote alert going off, logging itself to your allready estimote infested task list. Completely pissed off, you turn off your phone in order to leave the mall at peace. You're not buying stuff here. As you get home, you get an important call, but your phone is off, and you miss it. Resignated, you trash your iphone and get yourself a single purpose nokia. Serves you right estimote, serves your right. I think there's certainly potential behind these, but their "sell the dev packs" approach to it doesn't seem to be very promising. Most small retailers will struggle with the setup and SDK. Hell, the local supermarkets cash registers here have SQL injection vunerabilities. One bar code that includes ;DROP TABLE * in it and they're closed for a week. There seem to be several steps in setting these up. 1. Buying them. 2. Setting them up physically. 3. ? Linking them to a central system ? 4. Writing an app. Out of these points, it seems they are only covering 1, even though there's certainly work involved (and money to be made) in steps 2 - 4 . Dumping these on the buyer leads to friction in the buying process which will cost them sales. They need to sort that out.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- aflinik 13y ago

by msabath 13y ago

jimiasty 13y ago

The retail applications are very obvious - imagine you walk in to IKEA and approach sofa you like the post. You want to buy it, so you take a phone out of your pocket, unlock it and BAM - so you the picture of the sofa, you could add it to the cart or read more about it. If you go browsing for other furnitures some of them like a pillow might notify you that it fits to the sofa you have in the cart. No more wooden pencils and obscure Swedish names you need to write down :P We posted a blog post about it http://blog.estimote.com/post/57087827916/wooden-pencils-are-not-the-future-of-shopping http://blog.estimote.com/post/57087827916/wooden-pencils-are...

steverb 13y ago
How about smaller Mom and Pop style retail. I'm picturing the scenario where you're waiting for the sale rep to get free to ring you up and poking around the store in the meantime. Can we generate a heat map for the sales guy so he knows what you were looking at in the display racks? That would be pretty awesome.

solistice 13y ago

I personally think this thing will be misused to the hilt, but there are ways they can add real value to a brick and mortar shopping experience. Imagine you walked into a larger store, for example Walmart. As you walk in, the estimote app loads the wallmart app temporarily over the instore wifi. The app shows you a map of the store, which shows what products can be bought in which aisle, making your shopping experience much faster. As you approach the cash register, it acts like a concierge and tells you which register is the fastest one (some airports do this with a dedicated person, which directs people to different lines. It yields considerable speed ups). As you leave the store, the walmart app is removed from your phone. Estimote now shows you the nearest estimote enabled stores. That's the good scenario. Now to the bad. You go to the mall. As you approach it, you phone starts buzzing like it's mad. You think it's a call, so you pick up your phone. Nope, its Footlocker trying to sell you their new line of shoes at a 10% discount. Fine, but you're not looking for shoes. As you walk through the mall, your phone goes of wantonly, displaying ads for stores that are on the other side of the mall. Obviously, they don't know how to configure their estimotes. You can't walk for 5 meters without an estimote alert going off, logging itself to your allready estimote infested task list. Completely pissed off, you turn off your phone in order to leave the mall at peace. You're not buying stuff here. As you get home, you get an important call, but your phone is off, and you miss it. Resignated, you trash your iphone and get yourself a single purpose nokia. Serves you right estimote, serves your right. I think there's certainly potential behind these, but their "sell the dev packs" approach to it doesn't seem to be very promising. Most small retailers will struggle with the setup and SDK. Hell, the local supermarkets cash registers here have SQL injection vunerabilities. One bar code that includes ;DROP TABLE * in it and they're closed for a week. There seem to be several steps in setting these up. 1. Buying them. 2. Setting them up physically. 3. ? Linking them to a central system ? 4. Writing an app. Out of these points, it seems they are only covering 1, even though there's certainly work involved (and money to be made) in steps 2 - 4 . Dumping these on the buyer leads to friction in the buying process which will cost them sales. They need to sort that out.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
aflinik 13y ago