Determine whether user is at a specific location

Question

What's the best way to determine whether the user is at a specific location, i.e. at a gas station?

I've implemented an approach where the app is listening for major location changes until the user get's close enough to a location. Then the app switches to the more accurate location updates (kCLLocationAccuracyBest). It then checks if the user is close enough, and if so, I consider this as a "check-in". This works quite well. If the user moves away from our location of interest, I switch back to the major location updates to save energy.

This works as the user does not live or work within the first threshold (I currently use 300 meters). This situation drains the user's battery for no reason. If I set this threshold to low, the major location updates might not be accurate enough to detect the user in front of our location.

I'm using MKLocalSearchRequest to find all the places of interest in close proximity to the user.

So, I assume there are better ways. Any suggestions?

Thanks!
– Flo

Answer 1

iBeacons are the low power way if that fits your use case. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBeacon Is a suprisingly good overview

They are reasonably cheap, and can be simulated with computer software