BP have recently boldly deployed a real world application of IoT in a very ingenious way. Firstly download and install the BPme app and set up payment card details etc. It will also need to access location settings.
Pull up at a BP petrol station and the app will automatically detect details presumably via location. You are prompted to select a pump number, and amount of fuel required in £ and wait for it to be unlocked. Once unlocked (takes 3 seconds) you can fuel up to the preselected amount and payment will be processed as soon as the pump handle is replaced. Happy motoring knowing that all your receipts are in one place.
I like this for various reasons, however I like this idea most because it has leapfrogged the specific pay @ Pump hardware and re-purposed the existing pumps to deliver a pay at pump facility that is easy to use. All this delivered because somebody somewhere at BP re-imagined the pay@pump experience and delivered it by effectively converting their app into a point of sale whilst linking the instore pump control console too.
Secondly, the idea is great because it takes existing disparate tech and joins it up to deliver an entirely new service. It utilises real time location capabilities of the mobile phone, access to existing app payment protocols and the pump control console complete with existing BP back-room support systems to ensure convenience and continuity.
Thirdly, this deployment has essentially minimized the amount of additional kit that was required on the pay@pump stations. These included, bank card readers, bar-code scanners, printers, displays and number pads and the control computer lurking inside of them. Presumably this kit made those pumps quite expensive and could have been the reason behind slow roll out of the systems.
Obviously this has serious implications on staff numbers both at the petrol stations as well as the pay@pump specialist equipment suppliers. Soon the kiosks will be replaced with vending machines. Or even worse Amazon's car delivery service that launched yesterday.
I imagine this deployment has brought us one step closer to the deployment of fuel pumps onto the blockchain negating the need for BP sized capital to deploy such systems.
IoT is here in a big way and it's coming from unlikely quarters.
https://www.bp.com/en_gb/united-kingdom/products-services/bpme.html
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