Beacons are small devices that can be installed around an office building with the purpose of communicating with employees’ smartphones. Using Bluetooth, beacons can “read” where you are in the building and perform specific actions.
Here are some ways beacons will benefit the offices of the future:
Location Services
When you have your smartphone on you (and when you’ve enabled beacon access), the beacons in your office building will know where you are. Some applications for beacon-assisted location services include:
Checking In
Beacons can inform receptionists that a guest has arrived. They can even clock in for employees — no more scrambling for your badge or filling out timesheets when you forget to punch in!
Directions
When you go to a part of your office building that you’re not familiar with, beacons — with information sent directly to your smartphone — can guide you where to go. This is especially helpful for visitors or new hires!
Meetings
What if you never had to fight over a reservation for a meeting room again? Not only can smart technology help reserve a room for you, but beacons can also provide info about who’s using each room. Now you can simply check an app to see which rooms are available at any time.
Technology Assistance
Feeling disorganized? When the time comes for a meeting you’re spearheading, beacons can pull up your presentation for you.
But beacons aren’t just useful in meetings. When you get to your desk, beacons can recognize your presence and pull up a dashboard of important items on a TV or PC, providing you with a schedule simply by walking into your room. You can even program your tech to power down or lock when you’ve walked away.
Plus, if your office building shares laptops and other mobile equipment, beacons can be used to determine who has what at what time.
Productivity
Beacons can make huge impacts in reducing wasted time in the office.
Have you ever made the trek to a colleague’s desk just to find that they’re not there? With the help of beacons, you can easily know whether someone’s in the building or not — and even where they are in the building.
In more advanced cases, intra-office deliveries can be tracked: putting a temporary beacon on a package will help both the sender and the recipient know exactly where the package is, preventing confusion.
Spending
Just as beacons can reduce wasted time, they can reduce wasted energy. When a beacon recognizes that everyone has left a room, the room can then automatically turn off the lights.
Your office can even adapt to employees’ comfort: rooms can adjust temperature and even humidity as someone walks in. Thus, energy spent on unnecessary heating or cooling isn’t wasted.
The data delivered by beacons could be a game-changer for office managers, helping them discover exactly how the building is inhabited and utilized. They can then adjust layouts accordingly to maximize efficiency.
With all of the ways beacons can help out in the workplace, it’s no surprise that such devices are becoming more common in modern offices. If you’re ready to upgrade your workplace and enter the office of the future, contact Business World today.
