Grizzly Analytics Blog

I'm blogging now from the 2014 Mobile World Congress, MWC 2014, in Barcelona, so I'm writing quickly. If you or a colleague are at MWC, and are interested in indoor location technologies, there are two demos that you definitely want to see. (In fact, there are more than two, and I'll blog about others later. But the others will take more explanation, and I wanted to share these two now quickly.) The first is in the official MWC mobile application. In the mapping section, you can see your own location and track yourself on the map as you move around. You can also navigate to specific booths you're looking for. As I wrote earlier , the location positioning in this app is based on technology from PoleStar , even though this isn't indicated explicitly since they were a subcontractor to a subcontractor. The location positioning uses a combination of Wi-Fi fingerprinting, BLE beacons, and motion sensing.  The positioning isn't perfect, which isn't a surprise

Sunday evening, on the eve of the week of this year's Mobile World Congress, a press release was sent out announcing that this year's MWC would have "one of the world's biggest Wi-Fi networks," with over 1200 access points covering over 240,000 square meters. This is enough to make anyone who's attended a previous MWC conference say "whew! about time!" But deep in the press release is another, even more exciting, announcement: "GSMA is introducing new functionality in its GSMA mobile app... geo-localised routes." That's right - this year's MWC will include indoor location services, including mapping and navigation. The press release doesn't elaborate, but the indoor location technology for the MWC Wi-Fi network and mobile app is being provided by PoleStar , a start-up company based on France with offices in the USA. PoleStar is one of over 130 companies profiled and analyzed in our recently-updated report on Indoor Location

We've just released our latest Grizzly Analytics report on Indoor Location Positioning Technology . Our previous report, released in March, 2013, was 268 pages, and this newly updated report is a whopping 417 pages! What takes almost 150 extra pages? First, there are around 50 additional start-up companies profiled, and several new major technology vendors as well, bringing the coverage to 135 companies total. Many of the major companies have more patent filings, ongoing research, or products in the area than they did previously. Proximity beacons are receiving a lot more attention now than they did 9 months ago, ever since Apple announced iBeacon and a whole lot of companies, major and start-up, jumped into the fray. There are also a lot more high-accuracy positioning companies now, using UWB or other hardware-based techniques. And a lot more companies are offering valuable indoor services to the retail, healthcare, or other industries. Want to know more? Check out the