Xamarin Tech Partner Update: Spotlight on iBeacons

We’ve been busy growing our mobile ecosystem over the past year, and the Xamarin Component Store now features over 300 components that allow developers to easily integrate new functionality into their apps. Features ranging from cloud services and backend systems integration to charts, graphs, and datagrids can be added with just a few lines of code. Today, we’re excited to highlight our beacons partners BKON, Estimote, and MobStac.

These partnerships give Xamarin developers the power to detect beacons with simple integrations, expanding on our mission to make it fast, easy, and fun to build great mobile apps.   In mobile, context is king, and Estimote, MobStac, and BKON allow developers to build context-aware apps using micro-location data to send information to the users’ device. Beacons can be used to improve customer relationships by sending relevant information instead of “spam” ads, to drive increased revenue for businesses by informing shop associates when customers are interested in objects, and to speed transactions with automatic check-in.   Beaconstac by MobStac is a hardware-agnostic cloud service, allowing developers to use any beacon vendor of choice, including Estimote, to tap into MobStac’s robust content management, reporting, and analytics capabilities. With MobStac, users can use iBeacon data to detect high-traffic retail areas, to target specific users based on CRM data, or to push certain product catalog information based on in-store location.   BKON and Estimote provide both beacon hardware and Xamarin Components to detect beacon transmissions. BKON offers two beacon hardware variants, as well as security and management for deployed beacons, giving customers the ability to detect battery levels, set passwords, and more. With Estimote and Estimote Stickers, beacons become even more portable. Users attach a beacon to objects, allowing any device or item to become a “nearable”: a mini smart-machine, broadcasting data to devices in range. This takes contextual targeting even further, allowing, for example, sales associates to be alerted when a customer engages with an item or museum curators to adjust exhibit displays based on visitor interaction.

Our partnerships with Estimote, MobStac, and BKON make building native, context-aware apps simple, allowing your customers to remain relevant, gain competitive advantage, deliver better user experiences, drive additional purchases, and leverage user behavior to identify areas for growth.

Get started with BKON, Beaconstac by MobStac, and Estimote (iOS and Android) today.