Supporting local environmentally conscious and sustainable businesses has never been easier, thanks to inBloom: The Eco App. At the touch of a button, discover restaurants and coffee shops serving organic fare, stores stocked with eco-friendly clothing and more. You can also view every business’ location on a map, its Yelp rating, pricing and other details, plus customize your search results based on what’s most important to you.
Oh and here’s a fun fact: inBloom was built by Andrew Ross of the band OK Go, and Eytan Oren of Eytan and The Embassy. So, after you finish table-drumming your favorite song by either band, click “more” to take a closer look at what this app can do.
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Seek and Find
Hopefully it goes without saying, but to use inBloom, you’ll need to grant it permission to use your current location. Right away, the home screen gives you a few different categories to browse: Eat, Shop, Travel. Or, if you’re just interested in seeing which local businesses make the cut, click “see goodness nearby” and inBloom will deliver a list of results from across the board.
The app packs a lot of information into the search results, so scanning it for what you’re interested in is a cinch. Labels of red, blue, green and yellow somewhat designate different categories: restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, clothing stores, home and garden shops, and other retailers.
Choose from three main categories (Eat, Sleep, Travel), or let the app show you all the good businesses nearby.
In the search results overview you get a little information at a glance for each business, including its address, the first two lines of its description, its Yelp rating (out of five stars, plus the total number of reviews), its pricing (one to four dollar signs), and its status (whether it’s open or closed at the present moment).
By default, results are listed in order of distance closest to you. If you scroll to the bottom of your search results, you’ll find you have the opportunity to load more results, email the developers regarding questions or comments, or submit information about a green business that you would like to see added.
Break It Down
Tap on any business for more information than what was displayed in just the search results overview, including the business’ hours, complete description, its specialties (organic produce, good vegetarian options, etc.), phone number, website and other important details like whether or not the business accepts credit cards, has Wi-Fi, or makes deliveries. Without leaving the app, you can click on the phone number, website or address for a business.
Search results are somewhat color-coded, and display business information like contact details, hours, Yelp rating, specialties and more.
If you pick one of the Eat, Shop or Travel categories from the home screen, you’ll notice that the app subdivides each of these even further to help you find exactly what you need. For example, under Travel you’ll see there are listings for Hotels, Fuel, B&B, Camping and Charging. And under Shopping there’s Grocery, Markets, Sweets, Eco Wear and Eco Home.
You can search for businesses according to their location using the map feature.
Of course, you can also click Map at the top of your screen if you’d rather search for businesses according to their location.
Even More
With any search you perform using inBloom you can always whittle down your results even further. Just select Filter at the top of the search results screen and then start adding filters, such as dietary restrictions (fair trade, kosher, gluten-free, vegan, etc.), environmental practices (recycling program, energy and water efficiency, etc.), price, business hours and other factors. This way, if there’s a business in your city that fits all your criteria, you’ll know about it.
Filters provide even more customized search results; narrow down businesses according to their eco practices and other criteria.
Another way to get more out of inBloom is to head to your Settings. Here you can change your location — a handy option if you’re trying to research a vacation destination — as well as change presets regarding which topics interest you the most, such as vegetarian, vegan, organic, gluten-free, raw food, paleo, locavore and more sustainable business practices.
Under Settings you can set preferences so that inBloom will display only the information you’re most interested in.
Under Expert Settings you can get even more specific if you want, by presetting which kinds of businesses, what types of products, what types of cuisines, and what price ranges interest you the most.
Last Word
InBloom is an important tool for consumers who care where their dollars go and who are interested in supporting business practices and products they believe in. The app has also included so many different ways to find exactly what a user might be looking for that it all but takes you by the hand and walks you to the store. For those who are committed to living a little greener, inBloom really recycles your excuses into actions.