A Walk of Honour to commemorate the sacrifices of past and present military personnel may seem like an odd location to find an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) initiative, but Woodlea has just unveiled the Smart City enabled Memorial.
Woodlea’s Walk of Honour has a proximity information system to interact with Visitor’s smartphones.
The Woodlea Community within the City of Melton has unveiled the Aintree Walk of Honour mirroring the famous Avenues of Honour in Bacchus Marsh and Ballarat. The walk commemorates every significant military conflict involving Australian troops, including the Boer, WW1, WW2, Korean, Vietnam, Peacekeeping, Gulf and Afghanistan wars.
The official opening of Woodlea’s proximity information enabled Walk of Honour
The walk has been created on a site of rich military significance, having once been used as a radio communications facility for the US Forces in 1943 and then later, as a post-WW2 communication and surveillance post for the Australian Army.
The site’s historical technology connections are continued with the introduction of sensors that interact with a smartphone app to provide visitors with a rich interactive history as they journey along the walk.
iProximity iBeacons are fitted inside the permanent display fixtures
At the start and at each of the significant historical moments along the walk, Beacons are incorporated within the memorial structures. Visitor’s smartphone’s with the HelloLocal App detect each Beacon and automatically display the rich content that tells the story about each moment in History.
Woodlea’s Project Director, Matthew Dean, explains that the Walk of Honour has been designed to unlock the treasure trove of relevant local knowledge through the collaborative involvement of community groups, with a vision to see the walk become an ongoing source of pride for the City of Melton. “In collaboration with the City of Melton, we are aiming to connect with new generations of residents to tell the stories of Australian heroes throughout history, and we are proud to be working with local schools to incorporate areas of the walk into school curriculums.” said Matthew.
The technology solution was engineered by location Intelligence experts iProximity; it incorporates Beacon transmitters, the HelloLocal App and the iPX™ Management platform.
iProximity’s Co-Founder, David Burden said “we are delighted to be involved in this community led memorial, especially given the historic location of the site and to be able to deliver an interactive experience that can be enjoyed by all ages.”
The technology solution is drawn from iProximity’s Smart City platform which allows information delivery to residents and visitor’s smartphones based on their precise location. Burden continued “the smart city platform is modular in design and often commences with an initiative like the Walk of Honour and then can simply expand into a whole City framework.
The iProximity Bluetooth iBeacons were installed by the Woodlea team who also developed the interactive content, by leveraging their existing website content. iProximity’s iPX™ management platform provides the means for the Woodlea team to manage the visitor experience at each Beacon. Woodlea chose to use the Smart City enabled HelloLocal App, but in future, they will switch to a wider City App.
Visitor stats and useful analytics area available to the Woodlea team from the iProximity iPX™ in real time meaning it’s easy to determine the success of the initiative and content updates or changes are simply managed from the cloud.
For more information on iProximity Smart City Solutions, please visit: http://www.iproximity.net
