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I believe this is already used in retails stores, and passively listening app libraries are able to determine the user’s location.

I believe it is also used for television ads.




Do you know of any commercially available and reliable implementations of this sort of ultrasonic beacon that a startup could use?

I have a dream of a product I want to develop someday. I like to go to bars and do karaoke. But I would love to be able to open an app on my phone and submit the songs that I want to sing, then get an ETA for my next turn. To prevent abuse, the system should somehow validate that the user is in the venue. Having the user point their phone at a screen displaying a QR code would be problematic though, especially for people like me (I'm legally blind). Would an ultrasonic beacon work reliably, even in a noisy karaoke bar? Maybe a Bluetooth beacon or beacons would be better, but that would be more hardware for the venue or mobile karaoke DJ to buy and set up. Yes, I know, all of this is totally a first-world problem; I should focus on things that really matter.


I think this is a good idea. I agree with you about the QR code being problematic, simply because some bars are extremely crowded, and it would be difficult to ‘find’ the QR code.

Also, anybody could take a picture of the QR code and re-share it.


QR code gets a tad more secure if you couple with geolocation prompt.




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