Geofencing To Liberation
What Exactly Is A GeoFence ?
We can term Geofence as virtual geographic boundary within which software will trigger a response when either a mobile device enters or leave that particular area as defined in Geofence .
It’s a virtual geographic boundary , but what and why you need to know as a developer for Geofence ?
Let’s get couple of used cases wherein Geofence has saved us :
Location Specific App
Below given app UI is the one which I have encountered it at personal level , wherein the key feature was to suggest users with restaurants near their vicinity . Once the users comes near geofencing of any restaurant who is serving at their place , user will be able to see as well as notified for the available list of restaurants . The below given app can be termed as best example of geofences apps . The user at the same time will also get personalised experience with minimal development efforts and hence we can say this is what the beauty of it .
Marketing
Many of the mobile application now a days are making use of geofencing to send notification to user when they are nearby their shops . Push notification has resulted as better way for marketing and user retentions . If we make use of two awesome things — push notification along with geofence data , you can experience next level of awesomeness . For instance say you are nearby to some fashion offers in which some huge timely discounts are going on , the app will detect your location and will give you push notification so that you can go and buy some stuff with huge discounts .
Artificial Intelligence
Another good use cases of geofences using AI in application . You might have seen Google Nest thermostats wherein machine has ability to automatically adjust temperature on the basis of user presence . The Nest app also has ability to detect user location and tell us whether they have entered the house or have left it using home location . The entry and exit events are present right there to perform action pertaining to thermostats !
Best Things Always Comes At Price
Geofence might not always be a win win situation for the problem you are trying to solve . Geofence API might need some additional permission to work efficiently :
- Geofence won’t work if user doesn’t allow location access on their phone from app settings . So you need to handle this situation gracefully in your application .
- When user always turned on their device location , it will consume to much of battery of users phone and hence users might refrain to turn that on
- Geofence perform best in area wherein you want to cover area of more than 100 meters or wherein user is not considering battery consumption.
Some Common Pitfalls
There is always some common mistakes which as a developer you are implementing geofences . Let’s look at them step by step :
Geofence Is Too Small
Geofence must have at least a radius of 100–150 meters in order to get best result . Setting small radium might give you better result in testing , but will for sure defer in real world situation .
Network Problems
Geofence service totally depends on network availability as well as data connections . If no data connection is there , you will not be entertained with any alerts .
Delayed Alerts
Geofence is implemented in most of the devices in a way that it does not continuously query for locations . In general most of the developers . The latency is usually less than 2 minutes if device is moving but can carry on in few minutes as well if background limits are into effect . Further more if device is stationery for larger period , the delay can be as much as 6 minutes as well .
App Exceeded Geofence Limit
You might have certain limit on geofence , for instance say 100 per app per device users . At the time you cross that limit , you will not be able to create any more geofences .😞
GeoFence Implementation
For hardcore development at your end , you can quickly check Android developers documentation here. Happy learning 😊
