CustomerIn Systems, a Canadian software-development firm located in Vancouver, B.C., is providing Near Field Communication (NFC) solutions for restaurants, bars and other entertainment establishments.
The first of what the company hopes will be many NFC solutions is a restaurant application dubbed the Connected Restaurant. This application, which has been deployed and tested, allows diners to use their mobile phones to request a table, order a drink and receive other services via their NFC-enabled phones.
In addition, by July of this year, the company plans to launch a Web site for mobile developers looking to pursue NFC-enabled solutions. The site, known as SimpleNFC.com will provide developers with application software to build their own NFC solutions, and enable them to purchase software kits and tags.
To interact with the Connected Restaurant system—which is not yet commercially available, since it must first go through a pilot with a restaurant—patrons must have an NFC-enabled phone, such as Samsung‘s Nexus S model, capable of reading passive NFC RFID tags. A customer arriving at a participating restaurant—one with a CustomerIn application and NFC tags installed in its business—could check in by tapping his or her NFC phone against a tag affixed at the front desk. Once the patron taps the phone, it sends the tag’s ID number to a CustomerIn server via a cellular link. By using the Connected Restaurant application loaded onto the phone, that individual can then select prompts to request a table. In the meantime, he or she could also order an appetizer or a drink using a drop-down menu of choices in the Smart Phone app, from the same front-desk tag read. The visitor can then receive a text message indicating when his or her table is ready.
Once seated at a table, the diner could read the NFC tag placed on the menu, or on another location at the table. When the phone is tapped against the tag, that tag’s ID is forwarded to the CustomerIn server, where it is linked to information regarding items on the menu, such as a specific entrée’s ingredients, calorie count or sodium content, for example. To summon a waiter or waitress, or to request the check, the patron can read the tag once more, and another prompt can be selected from the drop-down menu.
CustomerIn has tested its first version of the system using RFID tags from UPM RFID and a Nexus S phone in its own laboratory, but the company is still seeking a restaurant to pilot the technology. The greatest challenge, says Fred Rego, CustomerIn Systems’ president, will be to identify a restaurant willing to try a new technology. “It depends on their willingness to pioneer a new way of doing things,” he states.
Once the piloting restaurant is identified, Rego says, “we’ll make the app available on the Android Market store for free.” He adds that, “Our vision is to have our app support all NFC phones available in the market” as they are commercially released.
SimpleNFC.com will include an online store that will sell NFC RFID tags (manufactured by UPM RFID) that developers will be able to utilize to help create the applications they are designing for NFC-enabled phones. The tags can be shipped directly to a developer’s end users.
Users can also purchase a starter kit that includes 10 NFC tags for testing, an application programming interface (API), programming libraries and sample codes to help developers begin coding a specific application. Price has yet to be determined, the company reports. With the starter kit, Rego says, developers can build applications like smart posters (such as those posted at bus stops to provide bus routes and schedules) and micro-location systems (such as might be used by a museum, so that a visitor can tap his or her phone near a painting to learn about its background or history). Applications could also include product information, such as at a supermarket, as well as social networking, to exchange contact information with another phone or check in to an establishment. Developers can upload artwork to be printed on the tags they purchase.
In addition to the starter kit, the site will allow developers to download NFC APIs and libraries for free, though the developer would pay per transaction once users begin utilizing their application. Developers will also be able to go onto the site to program an application to employ NFC tag reads to connect data to users via phone, Web or e-mail, as well as provide location data indicating where a chip would be installed (such as at a restaurant table or a museum exhibit).
“We’re trying to make it simple,” Rego says. The company is currently preparing for the expected growth in the NFC-enabled phone market by 2012. CustomerIn’s goal, he says, is to support all NFC phones’ operating systems as the phones are made commercially available.
In the future, CustomerIn Systems also intends to develop solutions for other industries, such as car dealerships and grocery stores.