What is Geofencing and How Does it Work?

Have you ever been walking around in a neighborhood and a location-based alert pops up on your device? If you have had such an experience or a related one, you are witnessing geofencing.

Geofencing is “the use of GPS or RFID technology to create a virtual geographical boundary, enabling software to trigger a response when a mobile device enters or leaves a particular place.” Sometimes, the response can also be triggered by a Wi-Fi or a cellular data that has already been designed to trigger the action. Geofencing is also in action whenever you get a push notification on your device while you are prompted with an incentive. You can receive that alert or prompt anywhere where the technology has already being pre-program to trigger a response. How does it work?

How does geofencing work?

Geofencing works by establishing a barrier at a particular location with the assistance of an RFID or GPS-enabled software. Let me put this in a better perspective. Imagine yourself drawing a circle of a specific dimension around a spot on Google maps. If you do that, you have created a virtual geofencing around the marked area. Thus, a response will be triggered whenever the right device exits or enters the marked area.

Photo Credit: 42gears.com

Geofencing works on smartphones through the incorporation of the geofencing code in the mobile app. The device now combines the geofencing technology with the location services already incorporated into the device to work. That is the simple principle behind geofencing. A typical example of the application of geofencing is when you have a museum app installed on your mobile device. Whenever you move close to an article, object, or collection in the museum, the app with the geofencing technology embedded will deliver all the stored information about the particular item. This is one of the simplest applications of the technology. You can find other applications around you if you take a critical look at your environment, work, home, and other places. Note, however, that without installing a plugin or an integrated SDK on your device, geofencing will underperform or fail to function at all.

Due to the wide areas of applications of this technology, there are tons of geofencing companies that are trying to leverage the popularity to provide geofencing services to people.

One of the outstanding companies rendering such services is Radar. The company is poised to assist you to reap some of the benefits of geofencing when you apply the technology to your business.

On its official page, Radar promises to help you “build better products and make better decisions with location data.” It thus prides itself as the best location platform for such services. Of course, a good look at its page will give you a clue into why the company makes such claims. It promises to offer location-based services for a wide range of businesses. So, whether you are into travel, shopping, social, food, entertainment, and the likes, Radar will offer you the best service that will enhance the overall performance of your business.

When you use the Radar geofencing app, you are not alone. You are joining millions of others users around the world to enjoy the services of an app that boasts of processing billions of different locations around the world every week.

Areas of application

Geofencing services, like the one offered by Radar, can be employed in the different sectors of the global economy. Let me cite some practical examples of its wide array of uses. Consider these:

1. Business: When your customers or clients install the app on their devices, you can easily recognize these customers whenever they are within your vicinity. The customer or client may receive a push notification from his or her mobile, informing the client that your company or business office is in the neighborhood.
2. Marketing: Geofencing is now used by a lot of businesses for promoting their services as well as notify customers that are in the neighborhood. The technology can also be used to provide customers with customized ads and offers for improved conversions.
3. Social networking: Social networking is another area where this technology can be put to the best use. Have you ever used Snapchat before? Snapchat’s location-based stickers, filters, and others make content sharing relatively simple and stress-free on this app.
4. Audience management: A geofencing technology provided by Radar can assist a management company to organize crowd that is gathered in festivals, concerts, fairs, and several other events.
5. Construction companies: A construction company or other companies with staff that are working in different locations can use this technology to monitor the movement of their staff around their locations. The app will assist the company to know the workers that are within their expected workplace at a point in time and those who are not at the designated place at the right time.
6. Smart appliances: The introduction of Radar’s geofencing technology can lead to the creation of smarter For instance, consider a geofencing-based app that can be used by your vehicle to detect too much proximity to a vehicle and warn you of the danger or an air conditioner that automatically switches itself on when you are at a predetermined distance to your home. That enables the air conditioner to put your home at the right temperature before you reach home.

So, with the Radar’s geofencing app, you can have access to your workers that are working in remote areas, market your business to customers in your vicinity, and control your home. It can also be used to track vehicles, cattle in farms and dairy, and practically make life easier for you. Lest I forget, it has already been introduced into the drone industry to restrict aircraft from flying out of or enter restricted areas such as towers, monuments, and government buildings.

When this technology is fully integrated into other areas of human endeavor, we will have a technology that will reduce the stress of manually handling some of our affairs. We should simply expect the best of this technology from Radar.