Beacons Capitalize In New Markets | Symmetry Blog

Symmetry Electronics partners with leading suppliers across the globe to provide engineers with the components needed to develop groundbreaking IoT devices in the medical, retail, transportation, energy, home/industrial automation, and communications sectors.

One technology that is growing in popularity amongst a series of diverse industries, are beacons. According to Global Marketing Insights, the beacons technology market is expected to exceed $25 billion by 2024. Beacons are small hardware transmitters that utilize Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to deliver location-based insights to nearby smart devices such as smartphones. Beacons are relatively inexpensive and can provide more accurate location-based searching and interaction behavior tracking than GPS or WiFi. This technology is ideal for indoor use and typically functions within a 70-meter range, or up to 450 meters for long range applications.

Scalable Offline Marketing Tactics

Beacons are especially relevant for retail marketers that are looking to bridge the gap between online and offline marketing efforts. When marketers invest in digital ads, they are often unable to determine if an ad resulted in a customer visiting their store to purchase a product. However, through beacon technology, retailers can link the outcome of an ad to an in-store visit by acknowledging the presence of a customer’s smartphone through an app. Retailers can also make the shopping experience interactive by sending current coupons and promotions to a customer’s phone while they browse the store.

Futuristic Healthcare Is Here

A more recent advancement in the use of beacon technology is in the healthcare sector. Hospitals are utilizing beacon’s for equipment asset tracking, patient monitoring, and task automation. Beacons can be placed in storage rooms, hallways, or doorways to communicate actionable insights that link to smart devices such as smartphones or wearables.

Manufacturing at Lightning Speeds

Manufacturing facilities are adopting the use of beacons in their everyday operations to track raw materials, finished products, equipment, and staff members. Integrating beacons into the manufacturing process has allowed manufacturers to benefit from automation efficiencies, error reduction, and improved safety for employees.

Expect the Unexpected

As the beacon technology continues to advance, more applications and industries are beginning to recognize the benefits of their use. Beacons deliver actionable insights for location tracking, navigation, interaction behavior, asset management, and security. These data points are relevant to many industries, and are not only being applied in retail, healthcare and manufacturing, but also in education, live events, hospitality, airports and more.

Build Your Own Beacon

Not all beacon devices are one-fits-all. Depending on the use case, a specific configuration must be utilized to support the desired outcome. Interested in developing your own beacon technology? Refer to our Beacons Tech Teardown (PDF) for guidance on how to get started.

We support many other applications. Check out our other Tech Teardowns for additional inspiration and technical support.