IoQZ: An Implementation of a Quiet Zone

While smartphones offer many valuable services, they could be a source of inconvenience to their users, considering the potential disturbance of the frequent sounds of notifications received throughout the day. Despite the abundance of available technologies to mute notifications, they all require a direct action from their users, thus potentially causing users to forget, or even neglect, to set their phones to silent mode. This article proposes an innovative, novel solution to this issue by implementing an environment with a predetermined perimeter known as the “quiet zone.” The Implementation of a Quiet Zone (IoQZ) employs the concept of Internet of Things (IoT) by utilizing unique transmitters known as Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) beacons, which indicate that a smartphone has entered the proximity of a quiet zone. And in turn, the smartphone will dynamically interact with the beacon so that it automatically sets itself to silent mode in a quiet zone, and back to the previous mode setting once its user leaves the quiet zone range. Therefore, this method does not require any direct intervention from the user in order to mute notifications. The proposed solution is original and was developed, implemented, and tested in a real-world workplace. The results showed that this concept is valid, effective, and accurate. The solution also yields opportunities, features, and applications that can be studied and extended upon as future work.