Grizzly Analytics Blog

It's always fun to come across a new and valuable application of indoor location technology. For the most part, indoor location is fairly straightforward: Figure out a person's location (or their phone's), put it on a map, and enable navigation and all sorts of other services based on their location, similar to outdoor GPS services. But every now and then a truly innovative application comes along. Israel-based WiseSec is using their indoor location positioning technology to enable "NFC-like" mobile payments without NFC.  This means that non-NFC phones can be used in an NFC-like manner, swiping against a sensor at a point-of-sale to make a secure payment. WiseSec's indoor location technology is based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, which enable BLE-enabled smartphones to track their location.  The company claims that 50-60 such beacons can cover a 100,000 square-foot site - obviously more beacons means more accuracy.  With enough beacons, thei

We've talked a lot about GeoFencing recently.  GeoFencing is the technology behind location-based reminders and location-based promotions , but more importantly, it transforms mobile apps to being proactive based on location, instead of acting only when invoked by users. GeoFencing is being researched and developed for indoor location applications , mobile app discovery , and more. But GeoFencing brings technical challenges.  Constantly monitoring a phone's location to see when it enters or leaves a GeoFence drains the CPU and the battery.  Checking only every minute risks not catching a GeoFence crossing in time.  Additionally, GeoFencing needs to integrate GPS, indoor location system s, and other location positioning methods, depending on the phone's location and capabilities. To answer these challenges, Broadcom has just released  a GNSS chip (supporting GPS and other location systems) that includes built-in hardware-based GeoFencing.  Their aim is to support

To the readers of the Grizzly Analytics blog: If you're going to be at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week, we're interested in meeting with you! We'll be happy to answer questions you have about mobile technologies like the ones we've written about here, discuss the different technologies being demo'ed at the conference, or share opinions about what's coming over the mobile horizon.   If you want, we can also discuss Grizzly Analytics and how our services can help you with understanding the industry, technology and your competitors.   Let us know at info@grizzlyanalytics.com and we'll schedule a meeting!