NEW APP PROMOTES OAKVILLE HERITAGE: WALKING AND TEXTING

NRU
July 26, 2017
Sarah Niedoba

To bring Oakville’s heritage to life, the town has launched a two-kilometre heritage trail in its historic Bronte Village neighbourhood. An innovative new app allows users to receive historical information about 19 landmarks as they make their way along the path.

Proposed by the Bronte BIA, the app uses 19 e-beacons—Bluetooth transmitters placed in different locations along the trail—to send users site-specific information on their smart phones at stops along the way. Messages highlight historic features such as the Bronte Outer Harbour Marina, Bronte Lighthouse, Bronte Sovereign House and Bronte Bluffs.

“This is a trail-oriented town, people walk here for fun, not just for exercise,” Oakville mayor Rob Burton told NRU. “An app like this really enhances people’s experience of the history Oakville has to offer.”

Visitors walking past a landmark such as the Sovereign house—Bronte’s first school house, built in 1815—will receive a text message explaining its history, and can listen to two voice actors perform a scene from the past.

“The project begins with Bronte’s indigenous roots, to its establishment as a small fishing village, and how the waterfront harbour became the central hub it is today,” Bronte BIA executive director Ann Sargent told NRU.

Sargent says that, along with automated text messages, the app will also play recorded audio clips for users, adding another layer of information to the experience.

“By having the messages send automatically, you remove a layer of user interaction that is necessary with other indoor location technologies like QR, which allows users to focus on the interaction with the actual content of the app,” she says.

Sargent says that, though the app was only launched last week, she has received an enormous amount of positive feedback.

“We’ve got hundreds of downloads so far, and people love that they can have a leisurely learning and entertaining experience on their own and at their own pace,” she says. “We can speak of fishing shanties and mills that are no longer physically present, but we can bring the history of that location to life with the help of apps like these.”

Research for the app was conducted by the Bronte Historical Society, the Oakville Public Library, Oakville & Trafalgar Township Historical Societies, Oakville Moccasin Trail and the Canadian Caribbean Association of Halton. The app itself was built by Hyllo Analytics Inc.