BlueZoo Fall 2024 Release

Andrew Neale

BlueZoo, the leader in audience measurement for out-of-home advertising and Retail Media Networks, this week announced BlueZoo Fall 2024, with major new capabilities.

The new BlueZoo firmware (version 5) gives BlueZoo sensors still more flexibility for internet connectivity. The new BlueZoo dashboard (version 4) provides new visualizations of BlueZoo measurements, whether customers use BlueZoo’s own sensors or, instead, BrightSign media players running BlueZoo firmware. Their new Real Time API introduces scalable delivery of real time occupancy data.

BlueZoo customers typically access BlueZoo impressions and occupancy analytics from BlueZoo’s cloud-based data warehouse (Google BigQuery) with a one-hour latency. Now, BlueZoo’s new Real Time API delivers occupancy counts in real time and impressions counts at the close of each quarter hour. This data, available through a cloud API, can be visualized on a web page or mobile app to users who want to know how busy a location (e.g. a retail space) might be. The real time API can be also used to forecast traffic.

BlueZoo sensors are easy to deploy and can be up and running in a matter of minutes. They connect to the Internet via ethernet or Wi-Fi, or using a USB cellular modem.

BlueZoo sensors with version 5 firmware now support Vodafone’s newest USB cellular modems with any cellular service provider through the APN configuration. Internet backhaul can be configured either directly-connected to the sensor or remotely via the web dashboard.

With the new firmware, in addition to DHCP support, the sensor can be assigned a static IP address on either the Ethernet or Wi-Fi Internet backhaul. Sensors can also use open Wi-Fi access points (that do not require a password). Data remain secure due to end-to-end encryption.

BlueZoo sensors measure Visits (aka impressions) and Visitors (aka occupancy) in each of two detection zones: inner and outer. Out-of-Home media owners use the inner area to report the opportunity-to-see of the ad panel: how much should advertisers pay? They use the outer area to measure the circulation around their asset: is my signage in a good location? Retailers leverage this capability to compare store visits to foot-traffic passing in front of their stores, but not entering.

In BlueZoo Fall 2024 the BlueZoo dashboard visualizes both measurements with time granularities from 15-minutes to a full year. Analysts can visualize measurements of inner and outer zones dating back to the original deployment of their sensors because these data have been measured and recorded in BlueZoo’s data warehouse.

You may remember earlier this year that BlueZoo made available the BlueZoo software extension for BrightSign Series 5 players. Just as for Series 3 and 4, this ‘extension’ allows you to use a BrightSign player as a BlueZoo sensor, beyond the player’s other capabilities. For purposes of Passive Wi-Fi sensing, you can either use BrightSign’s Wi-Fi module or add a USB Wi-Fi dongle.

BlueZoo Fall 2024 is generally available now to all customers. Customers who access the web dashboard today will see version 4. Customers with Black Panther sensors may upgrade those sensors today to v5 firmware using the web dashboard (over-the-air) or via direct-connect (over-a-wire).


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