Communication Beacon Grouping for Stable Spatial Clusters
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current point-of-sale systems struggle to efficiently manage and associate consumer devices within a merchant shop, particularly in environments like dine-in restaurants, where multiple groups of consumers need to be served simultaneously, leading to inefficiencies in order management and payment processing.
Innovation Solution
A system utilizing communication beacons and merchant devices to programmatically group consumers by broadcasting unique identifiers via a wireless personal area network (PAN), allowing for the creation of point-of-sale orders and facilitating payments through association with consumer accounts, even when devices move out of range or change proximity to beacons.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If communication beacons broadcast beacon identifiers via wireless PAN to consumer devices, then consumer devices can be automatically associated with point-of-sale orders, but the system complexity increases due to multiple communication protocols and devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces communication beacons as intermediary devices that broadcast beacon identifiers via wireless PAN. These beacons act as mediators between consumer devices and the merchant device, enabling automatic association without direct complex communication between all components. The beacon serves as a simple intermediary that reduces the communication complexity while maintaining automation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system is segmented into distinct functional components: communication beacons for broadcasting identifiers, merchant devices for processing associations, and consumer devices for receiving identifiers. This segmentation allows each component to have a simple, dedicated function, reducing overall system complexity while enabling automated operation.
2Productivity
If the system tracks consumer device proximity to communication beacons for order management, then payment processing efficiency improves, but the reliability decreases when devices move out of range
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary association of consumer devices with point-of-sale orders when devices are within beacon range. By establishing the association in advance while the device is accessible, the system ensures payment processing can proceed efficiently even if the device later moves out of range. The association is created before the potential loss of connectivity occurs.
Solution Approach 2:
The system cushions against potential connectivity loss by maintaining the established association in the system memory even after the consumer device moves out of beacon range. This prior cushioning ensures that the payment processing reliability is maintained despite the device's movement, as the association record persists independently of real-time connectivity.
3Measurement precision
If the system creates separate point-of-sale orders for each consumer device, then order management accuracy improves, but the ease of operation decreases for group payments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables merging of multiple individual point-of-sale orders into a single group payment transaction. While separate orders are initially created for each consumer device to maintain accuracy, the system provides functionality to combine these orders when processing group payments. This merging capability maintains order management precision while significantly improving the ease of operation for group scenarios.
Solution Approach 2:
The point-of-sale system is designed with multi-functionality to handle both individual and group payment scenarios. The same system infrastructure that creates separate orders for precision can also aggregate these orders for group payments. This universality allows the system to adapt to different operational modes without requiring separate specialized systems, thereby improving ease of operation while maintaining accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, apparatus, methods, and non-transitory media for programmatically grouping consumer devices into stable spatial clusters are discussed herein. Some embodiments may include a point-of-sale system including a first consumer device of a stable spatial cluster of consumer devices to serve as a communication beacon. The first consumer device, that serves as the communication beacon, is configured to transmit and receive signals between a server and the other consumer devices of the stable spatial cluster of consumer devices. The other consumer devices receive a beacon identifier from the first consumer device and are thereby associated with a point-of-sale order to facilitate suitable point-of-sale functionality that may be provided via the first consumer device.