Wallrust, the first company to market automated status sharing for smartphone users via its Caret app, is making its technology available to software developers so that other apps have the capability to utilize smartphone user’s status and location. By integrating the Caret technology, app developers and device makers can build their own status triggering service to connect with their users, providing seemingly endless possibilities. Now, apps have a simple and easy way to connect users with real-time presence and location.

For example, by integrating Caret’s automated status sharing, an online, multi-player jigsaw game now enables players to have their smartphone status show ‘Playing PuzzleWinds’ so that others can join. Players can be current friends or fellow players from anywhere in the world, or some combination.

Caret’s status settings are set by the user providing full control over privacy so that only designated people in the user’s address book see the specific status or, if desired, anyone can see status. There are four pre-set levels, which can be customized to control access to details that others see.

Another possible application is for event organizers. With automated status sharing, it becomes possible for conference or concert personnel to recognize attendees who are nearby (can set customizable distances), in order to expedite registration, as well as help plan staffing levels required at different times depending on crowd sizes.

Another example is a restaurant with the customer making a reservation for 8 p.m. and the restaurant receiving notification when the customer is within 15 minutes of arrival so that the table can be ready at exactly the right time. Or, a different scenario relates to food delivery where it is possible to show the delivery status on a map in real-time so the customer knows exactly when to expect their food. It’s also possible for the customer to receive automated notifications when the food delivery leaves the shop and another when the delivery is two minutes away.

For the Internet of Things (IoT), it is possible to integrate devices such as a thermostat, lights and garage opener to control their status using Caret technology on the smartphone so that automatically at set distances from the home location the temperature adjusts, lights turn on and the garage opens.

“We believe this is a game-changing technology with tremendous potential by making it possible to connect specific status information of the smartphone user with any other software applications or devices,” said Marton Anka, the founder and CEO of Wallrust. He is a co-founder and the former CTO of LogMeIn, which today is one of the world’s top 10 software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies.

“By partnering with Wallrust, developers can focus on making their app or service great, while we handle the integration of sensor, location and real-time status functionality,” said Jozsef Patvarczki, the founder and CTO of Wallrust.

Wallrust is the maker of the Caret app that automates status updates by taking advantage of sensors on the smartphone, so that contacts know real-time status and location – available, on a call, in a meeting, travelling, do not disturb, or even when their contact’s phone is running low on battery. It does not depend on the user manually setting their status, which can change frequently and is often outdated. Caret adds a level of situational intelligence to smartphones and can automatically deduce the context of actions so, for example, when the phone is muted, status changes to ‘do not disturb’.

Wallrust, founded in 2013 and based in Palo Alto, holds five patents with three more pending related to automatic presence information sharing and sensor-based social networking. Currently, there are over 100,000 Caret users around the world. Caret is available as a free download for Android on Google Play and iOS on iTunes App Store, as well as Kindle Fire on the Amazon App Store. Currently, languages available are English (U.S.), Arabic, French, German, Hungarian and Spanish. The app supports free voice-over-Internet (VoIP) calls among Caret users. Also, Caret text messages are fully end-to-end encrypted – using Tresorit’s Zerokit SDK – providing security so that only the sender and receiver can see them and nobody in between. The chat communications comply with data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information as specified by the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

Pricing and availability
Wallrust is making available a free development version of its automated status sharing technology for up to 100 users. During the preview period of Caret’s developer services, the product version with support will start at $199 per month for up to 1,000 users. Additionally, Wallrust will offer a hosted version and larger plans.

Those integrating Caret technology have a choice of either keeping their own status services ‘Private’ available for only a limited number of users, or ‘Public’ and available through Caret for everyone to use. More information is available here, https://caret.co/services.html.