Buzzin App

About the city. In May 2018, Greater Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham launched an incubator for the city’s digital economy. The £2 million project is expected to provide up to 2,000 new jobs over the next 10 years, in addition to the city’s current 60,000 homes in the digital industry at a cost of more than £ 3 billion as of 2017.

Goal

The aim of the project is to help citizens discover the city around them through the applications of smart technologies.

Implementation period. The first appearance of the app was in 2016.

Fact

City’s developments like Buzzin keep Manchester in the Top 20 European Digital Cities – number 16 to be exact.

Solutions

The Buzzin app is part of the UK smart city project CityVerve.

The app uses augmented reality (AR) – which means adding layers of graphics, sound effects, and other distortions on top of our physical reality-to blend the real and virtual. AR serves as an improvement on something that already exists, using these added sounds and images to enhance the overall experience.

Buzzin interacts with more than 100 Alpha Node sensors installed across Manchester in locations such as buses, event venues, tourist attractions and various local businesses. Sensors contain micro-positional beacons that connect the digital experience to the physical world.

Northern Quarter’S Sparta Digital company, which developed the Buzzin app, uses Eddystone, an open beacon format from Google.

The beacons are provided by Sensoro, which was a pioneer in the production of new technology.

Team

Sparta Digital in collaboration with CityVerve (a project that is led by Manchester City Council and 20 organizations)

Timeline

• February 2017. The Buzzin app offered an augmented reality (AR) experience to revellers at the Chinese New year celebration in January in Manchester. Users could view events and events in the city, navigate to and around them, and interact with waypoints and totems.
• August 2017. Buzzin app was used at Manchester’s Pride celebrations over the August Bank Holiday weekend. With Buzzin, visitors could get information via their smartphones about the events taking place at various locations around the city.
• October 2017. The digital art project was held in Manchester’s All Saints Park, based on the collections of graphic designer and Design Manchester co-founder, Malcolm Garrett. Park visitors could experience the exhibition by downloading the Buzzin app.
• November 2017. The Buzzin app was animating Christmas mugs in holiday markets. Revellers could scan their mugs while enjoying a mulled wine or hot chocolate and discover hidden AR treats.
• May 2018. The City of Firsts tour features on the Buzzin app and takes city residents and visitors journey around the Oxford Road Corridor, Manchester’s innovation district, stopping at 13 green hexagonal plaques.

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