Short indoor location video from DecaWave chip launch

Grizzly Analytics was happy to be invited to the product launch of DecaWave's new chip for indoor location positioning in early November. Their chip uses UWB radio to precisely measure the distance between two chips. If their chips are put inside "beacon" devices in a room, and also inside "tags" on objects that move around the room, a system can track the locations of the objects moving around the room very precisely, to within 12-15cm.

We were unable to video a complete large-scale demo, because of the big crowd in the room, but we did get the following video that shows how precisely the system is able to track objects as they move around. The demo was done with four beacons in the corners of the room that are used to triangulate the locations of chips moving around the room. The demo as shown does not do any smoothing or post-processing of that triangulation.

DecaWave's chip is the latest in more than 50 solutions coming to market for indoor location positioning, using a wide variety of approaches. DecaWave's technology cannot be used on mobile devices until their chips are incorporated into those devices. But for industrial applications, and in the future if their chips are incorporated into mass-market devices, the precision that they offer is stunning.

Another company offering very high accuracy positioning is Quuppa (click here for a description and video). Several others, including BeSpoon, are in the works. Most other indoor location solutions are less accurate, estimating locations within 5-8 meters, but have the obvious advantage of running on today's smartphones.

Finding indoor location tech, and fans, at MWC 2017

Over 100,000 people are now planning to attend the 2017 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, in February. Many will flock to the newest devices, many to the keynote speeches from market leaders, and many to the latest tech from a huge variety of exhibitors. But how does anyone find all the tech they want to see? Anyone who has been to MWC in the past will tell you that there is no way to be sure you're seeing all that you want to see. Anyone interested in indoor location technology now has a solution. The Grizzly Analytics Guide to Indoor Location Technology at MWC2017 will list all the companies at MWC that are demonstrating, presenting or talking about indoor location tech. (Obviously we may miss one, but since we've reported on indoor location tech from over 200 companies , we expect to be fairly comprehensive.) The guide will be organized by technology type and also by MWC hall number, so you can plan your time accordingly. If you are exhibiting i

The year indoor location will truly take off

For years I've been writing sentences like "this will be the year that indoor location will explode into the market." I, and many others, have been expecting indoor location technology to enable the huge range of location-enabled apps, which currently work only outside where GPS signals are available, to work inside. But until now the promise of indoor location has remained a promise. But if we look at the reasons for this, we'll see that it is about to change. 2017 and 2018 are poised to be the years that the challenges keeping indoor location from going mainstream will be solved. First is accuracy. Most indoor location technologies until a year or so ago had accuracy in the range of 4 to 8 meters. This sounds good in principle, and in fact is better than GPS in many cases. But GPS systems are able to use road details to hide their inaccuracies, so that the blue dot seems to follow your driving car almost perfectly. But indoors, this sort of inaccuracy means y

Indoor Location, GeoFencing and Retail (Updated w/ video)

We've written a lot about indoor location technology , which is bringing location services indoors where GPS doesn't work. And we've written more recently about GeoFencing , a new location technology that enables smartphones to display content or take other actions when entering a specified area. And a few weeks ago we wrote about a company that was bringing the two together . Now Aisle411 has entered the ring, adding GeoFencing to their indoor solution . And they're bringing GeoFencing to life in the retail store industry . Aisle411's solution lets you navigate your way around a store to find specific products on the shelves. You can even enter your whole shopping list, or the items you need for a recipe, and the app will guide you around the store to buy everything you need quickly. And here's where the GeoFencing comes in: As you near certain products, you'll get offers for related products on your smartphone screen. They might be as s

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