Bosch IoT Hackathon Wants Your A-Game in Berlin this March

Bosch's IoT Hackathon will be in Berlin this March 14-16th. Are you going? We'll be there with beacons blazing!
Imagine... It’s a Monday. A cold, awful Monday, and you have to go to work. When you enter the door, you get a surprise: a cat gif! Just for you! The IoT is incredible!
Okay, there’s plenty of other ways beacons can make your Monday morning better. Can’t find your keys? Beacons can automate the door unlock and let you in hands-free. Need to book a meeting room? A smart office can help you do that, too.
Beacons can do more than send coupons or track hospital assets, but here’s the thing: we need you to make it happen.

There will be four distinct challenges at Bosch's IoT Hackathon: Mobility, Manufacturing, Building & City, and an Open Hack. Participants will find all kinds of tech to play with—including Kontakt.io beacons.

Brainstorming for the beacon IoT hackathon

If you've seen any of our BeaconValley Hackathon promotional materials--or if you attended and hacked the crap out those beacons--you know there's no secret...we love playing with tech. That's why we are beyond excited to see what you're going to make this IoT Hackathon. Makers have playing with beacons for years, connecting them to smart homes, 3D printers, or wearables, and we love not knowing what you'll coming up with next. So here's a little beacon background to get started.
There are 6 common use cases for beacon technology:

• Tracking: In manufacturing and transport, managers need to know exactly where goods are at any given time. By attaching beacons, they can always have that information. In fact, they can even see the information from previous days or weeks.
• Navigation: Creating accurate “GPS for indoor navigation” is a popular beacon use case. What Google Maps does for the outdoors, beacons can do for the indoors. They can tell you where you are and where you’re going in a museum, festival, or train station.
• Interaction: Beacons can make reactions automated and trigger events. It can trigger a projector, send notifications, or act as a loyalty card. Beacons can register how many times you visit your favorite cafe. On your tenth entry, you get a free latte—awesome!
• Security: Beacons can send alerts when someone wanders into an unsafe area or automate entrances to keep a space secure. They can also be paired with geofencing to add an extra layer to data security.
• Analysis: Beacons help generate data on where users are going, locate common high traffic areas, and tell you what people are engaging with.

How can you hack beacons to do something extraordinary?

Skip the house keys. Automate entrance into your apartment, and hook up a system to automatically message your mom to tell her you got home safe. Mom will love it.
Gamify your home. When you get up early even when you want to keep sleeping, shouldn’t you get a little pat on the back? Use beacons to register movements in a space and record your little successes… and failures.
Do something practical. Beacons are playing a huge role in smart homes and smart cities. Use them to automate lights and save energy.

Need more ideas?

Check out our post on what is a beacon or beacon use cases. These posts may be able to help you find the inspiration you need to hack something extraordinary.
My ideas? My suggestion was “automated cat gif app,” so let’s hope the engineers, makers, and hackers out there can imagine something a little more meaningful--although we all know an audience exists for automated cat gif app. Who wouldn't buy that for a dollar?
Bring your A game, because we want to see what you’ll hack this March!
Find more info at Bosch.