This Brooklyn technologist used iBeacons to automatically order Ubers and Starbucks

Are you ready to automate even your app use?

When Nick Lee reaches his apartment’s lobby, his phone automatically orders an Uber for him; minutes before he arrives at Starbucks, it’s already placed his order. Lee is, as he says, living in 3017.

How does it work? Lee is using iBeacons connected to the Uber and Starbucks APIs (actually he had to reverse engineer the Starbucks API) so that when he walks or drives past a certain location, his phone will work for him without him even having to take it out of his pocket.

Lee is the CTO for Dumbo-based app developers Tendigi. He found that he had the same routine every morning: take an Uber to Starbucks, order a coffee and walk to work. He wondered how seamless he could make the process.

iBeacons are an Apple feature that allow phones to connect with Bluetooth receivers to get messages. One idea is that they might be used in marketing, so that stores can zap you messages about deals inside as you walk by, but they can be used for a lot of stuff.

Lee wrote up his routine in a post on Medium, and it’s worth a read.

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