If you are in Budapest, do not be surprised if your phone is acting up while passing an advertisement

Thanks to a Hungarian invention, a new type of ’city light’ signs communicating with smartphones are invading Budapest and other major cities throughout the world. According to developers, an enormous benefit of this technology is that users can get information about products and sales without further adding to the annoying nature of advertisements.

JCDecaux’s intelligent ’city light’ solution has been introduced in the Hungarian capital, Budapest. The inventors think that it can help people be more well-informed. The invention of the market-leading out-of-home media company started its world-conquering journey from Budapest.

The iBeacon, a compact yet customizable beacon, is manufactured in Hungary.

The gadget itself was invented by Bcon Technologies’ specialists, but the idea of its application was developed by JCDecaux Hungary.

Photo: www.facebook.com/pg/JCDecaux

The technology – previously used in stores to entice purchasing – works through the formerly mentioned beacon that is installed into a ’city light’ sign. This little transmitter interacts with smart devices that enter its proximity. The smart device then automatically sends a signal to a server, where the engine for the given campaign can be found. This engine is activated and sends the appropriate information back to the phone in the form of a silent notification. The notification disappears if the device moves out of the beacon’s proximity, furthermore, these transmitters do not gather or use consumer information.

In the test period, instead of a notification, the commercial can be read in a traditional message. And, according to JCDecaux’s experience, this type of advertisement is more often followed by an actual purchase than those promotions that are conveyed through common offline means. Because of the flexibility of this technology, later, these beacons could transmit other types of information, for example, public service information, such as the schedules of public transportation or the weather forecast.

This technology is remarkably safe as it does not use any data from the customers and the notification is deleted after leaving the transmitter’s proximity.

So far, 50 ’city light’ signs received the upgrade, but by the end of the year – when they officially introduce the business – the number of these signs upgraded with the Beacon will increase to 300. In Budapest, people can test the device with the services of ’NetPincér’.

The initial two weeks of testing show promising numbers; thanks to the well-known nature of the promoted service, the number of coupons downloaded is beyond our anticipated figures for this new device – the company noted.

After the successful testing, the device will pop-up in other Hungarian as well as larger foreign cities. At the same time, the functions and the services in connection with the device will also broaden.

Featured image: www.jcdecaux.hu/portfolionk/nemzetkozi-jelenlet

Source: hvg.hu