Beacons and Passes
Apple Wallet makes relevant passes immediately accessible by integrating them with the lock screen.
Provide Relevancy Information using iBeacons
A pass is relevant when brought into proximity of an iBeacon with a
matching UUID.
You can add up to 10 unique beacon UUIDs to a
pass. Beacons can optionally include relevancy text, as well as the
major and minor Bluetooth identifiers.
Beacons only trigger
lockscreen messages for Apple Wallet passes - so only iPhone owners
can enjoy the convenience of beacon triggered messages.
What is a Beacon?
The term iBeacon and Beacon are often used interchangeably. iBeacon is the name for Apple’s technology standard, which allows Mobile Apps (including Apple Wallet but sadly not Google Pay) to listen for signals from beacons in the physical world and react accordingly. In essence, iBeacon technology allows Mobile Apps to understand their position on a micro-local scale, and deliver hyper-contextual content to users based on location. The underlying communication technology is Bluetooth Low Energy.
How do Beacons work with Passes?
You define what your beacons’ Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) mean within the context of your pass. You can use different UUIDs to represent different locations. For example, providing different relevancy text for different stores. Alternatively, you can have a large number of beacons with the same UUID—for example, one beacon per store for a large retail chain. This lets you exceed the ten-location limit for relevant locations. You can also use major and minor identifiers to further refine your relevancy text. For example, identifying different departments within a store.