East End Tech: Summer Time Saving Apps for Your Phone
You’re going to have a great time on the East End this summer but there will be traffic and lines at the hottest restaurants. Speaking of “hot,” green is where it’s at now. Here are the big three apps to make your summer even brighter
Waze
Whether you live in the Hamptons or you’re just visiting, everyone knows traffic in the summer is a pain. Imagine being able to outsmart traffic with the help of Waze, a free community-based traffic and navigation app.
With GPS apps like Apple Maps or Google Maps, traffic is displayed on your screen as a red line with no other information. But with Waze, you can enjoy community-edited maps that are constantly updated to alert you to road closings, accidents, red light cameras, traffic jams and police. The Waze website calls it, “a personal heads up from a few million of your friends on the road.”
But your fellow Waze drivers aren’t your only friends on the road. You can meet up with real friends and coordinate arrival times by connecting to Facebook. Every driver has a different colored icon showing their position on the map so you’re always in sync and ready to help.
MY ECO Reuse
Single-use plastic bags are no longer allowed in Southampton Town retail shops. Shoppers are being urged to bring their own reusable bags or to buy bags provided at stores. It’s hard to change an ingrained habit, but that’s where the MY ECO App comes in.
MY ECO sends alerts to your phone reminding you to bring reusable bags to retailers, measures your progress and even rewards you with coupons to your favorite store. It recognizes when you get to the store and reminds you to bring your bags inside.
To register, fill out the brief questionnaire regarding your shopping habits such as how much you generally spend (from $50–$500), what day of the week you shop and locations where you shop most often. After you create an account, you can even join a group, where other eco-minded shoppers can encourage you to reach your goals and share in the satisfaction of preserving the environment.
MY ECO users can track their progress based on their shopping habits and can potentially save 2,362 disposable bags from landfills per year!
Open Table
Have you ever gone out to eat and waited hours for a table? It’s time to put an end to that.
Open Table, a free real-time restaurant reservation service available for Android and IOS, helps you discover new and exciting restaurants, view menus, read reviews, share dinner invitations with friends and family, and even earn rewards towards your
next meal.
Reserving a table is easy—Open Table searches for restaurants in your area and offers selection options such as party size, cuisine and price. After you select where you want to go, reservations are just a tap away. Choose from a list of available times and instantly reserve your table. And never forget a reservation with the Open Table calendar alert which reminds you an hour before your scheduled meal.
Waiting for a table isn’t the only problem with going out to eat. Sometimes waiting for the check can be just as long a haul. With Open Table you can pay electronically using Apple Pay. (Unfortunately for Android users, you’re stuck with the paper check.)
Android and iPhone users can both enjoy easily making reservation changes, cancelations and re-bookings.