Smart Apps - the solution for smart living in smart cities

Digitalization and automation mean progress, and new technologies can improve the quality of life in big cities. When we think of smart city solutions, a few keywords come to our minds such as smart mobility, smart grids or waste reduction, but it is important to also look at Smart Living solutions.

There is a wide spectrum of smart city applications, ranging from air quality monitoring, parking, street lighting controlling and many others. Applications are indispensable tools in big cities, whether they are made available to citizens by public administrations or they are made available by IT companies.

App Dedicated to Social Distancing in Restaurants

For example, an application which allows customers to order from the phone, before arriving at the restaurant, is developed by the IT company FlamingoApp from Cluj-Napoca, member of Transilvania IT Cluster. Basically, the application helps customers have the food ready by the time they reach the restaurant. This application became very popular in the pandemic context.

Ana Neamțu, founder of the IT company, said that employees are now working to add restaurants to the application, to be adapted to the new requirements, related to the menu that will be only in a digital format and compliance GDPR on the register of customers.

"We are working on developing the Flamingo App for pre-orders in the restaurant to ensure social distancing, putting customer safety first. Through the application on the mobile phone, restaurant customers order the menu before arriving at the place, so that when they arrive, the food is ready to serve. Interactions with waiters will be reduced from a minimum of seven to one, only when the order is placed. Each customer will set the time of booking so that the restaurant has time to prepare and the number of people who will be at the table", said Ana Neamțu.

The payment of the food order is made exclusively with a card in the application, in order to avoid contact with the money that may carry the virus. The application is useful for the HORECA industry, in this period when social distancing is recommended, just as physical contacts should be as few as possible.
(photo -1 flamingo app - source: cluj.info)

Parking Apps

Another application developed by a company from Cluj-Napoca is dedicated to parking spaces. In all big cities it is almost impossible to find vacancies and you often waste a lot of time finding a vacancy.

YeParking is a free parksharing application, developed in Cluj, which brings together a community of thousands of drivers, willing to share their parking spaces. In turn, they can park for free on the places available in the application. Drivers, who help the community by providing a parking space, are rewarded with virtual coins (parkCoins), which can benefit from discounts on various products and services of the application developer's partners, as well as discounts on private parking lots that have started to be listed in the community. The first of them is the Cluj-Napoca Airport Parking, according to the application's website.
​

From the same category is the Cluj Parking application - the application of the City Hall for parking spaces in the center of Cluj, developed by the company AROBS from Cluj-Napoca. Through this app, Cluj-Napoca City Hall provides citizens with parking spaces available in the 6 barrier parking lots in the city.
​

Solution for the Public Sector

NTT DATA AMLAD is an application of the company NTT DATA ROMANIA and is dedicated to museums, libraries, public archives and companies to store and archive images, videos and audio documents in one place.

A city can’t be a smart city without smart living which combines the use of apps, social networks and new social technologies.
 
​​
Author: Laura Goarnă
@ARIES Transilvania