Beaconized Alpacas Are Probably The Most Adorable Use Case You’ve Ever Seen

When we introduced the Tough Beacon designed to operate in outdoor and exposed situations, we had many use cases in mind. We couldn’t have known that one day our ruggedized beacon would be mounted on an alpaca. You don’t normally see “beacons” and “adorable” in the same sentence, but here’s the cutest use case we’ve written about this year.

Beacons in tough conditions

Van Ons, an Amsterdam-based company, teamed up with Media599 to develop a beacon-enabled app that unlocks edutainment experiences at Valleike farm. Since it’s an open-air use case, their natural hardware choice was the Tough Beacon. They mounted them on site to enable visitors to access location-aware content, such as videos, pictures, and games on their smartphones as they walk by.

Our goal was to innovate the way of learning about farms by creating a simple tool which can be used even by children. Beacon technology was an obvious choice as it helps us to offer both a hassle-free visit and a full edutainment experience at once.

Bas van der Lans, Technical Director at Van Ons

Meet Cezar

Cezar isn’t just an alpaca. Apart from being probably one of the cutest alpacas you’ve ever seen, it’s the first beaconized alpaca in the world.
Van Ons gave him the beacon once they were absolutely sure it was safe. How does Cezar like his new jewelry? Since the beacon is waterproof, he doesn’t have to take it off every time he wants to take a shower. Besides, he can finally “talk” to his visitors and he seems to be excited about it. Just look at him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyVtXaWALWA&feature=youtu.be
So there’s a new Tough Beacon feature we didn’t know. As it turns out, apart from working outdoors and on moving objects, it’s also a great platform for writing “alpac”lications. 🙂
Beaconize your alpacas & more — Order Tough Beacons