• Gigaom, Thursday, January 8, 2015 10:48 AM

The Wi-Fi Alliance is creating a new certification program called Wi-Fi Aware that seeks to provide information about where a device is in relation to other devices and to share contextual information with the user without sucking down a lot of juice. For example in a stadium it might be used to tell a person that there’s a shorter line for concessions just ten feet a way or in an airport it might share gate information or let you know one of your colleagues is also nearby in the terminal. If this sounds like beacon technology offered by Bluetooth Low Energy you would be right. Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance, did not compare it directly to beacons, but did explain that Wi-Fi Aware was designed to offer “neighbor awareness” between devices

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