Google is trialling a new technology that allows customers to make payments in-store hands-free.The technology comes in the form of a payments app, Hands Free, which, available for Android and iOS devices, Google is currently trialling at a number of stores in the South Bay area of San Francisco.
The trial follows last year’s launch of Google’s Android Pay mobile payments service, with competition in the digital wallet sector intensifying.
“Once you’ve installed and set-up the app, Hands Free uses Bluetooth low energy, Wi-Fi and location services on your phone to detect whether you’re near a participating store,” Google explains of the process via a blog post at its Google Commerce Blog.
“When you’re ready to pay, you can simply tell the cashier, ‘I’ll pay with Google’. The cashier will ask for your initials and use the picture you added to your Hands Free profile to confirm your identity.”
Further to this, Google states that at select stores, it is also in the early stages of experimenting with visual identification, using an in-store camera to automatically confirm identity based on the Hands Free profile picture, with all images captured by the Hands Free camera deleted immediately.
Further information on Hands Free can be found here.
