New report on Chip-Based Indoor Location Positioning Technologies

Grizzly Analytics just released its latest report, on Chip-Based Indoor Location Positioning Technologies. This niche-area report analyzes tech from 19 companies.

Why is chip-based indoor location technology interesting? Aren't the algorithms the same as those implemented in software?

First, chip-based location tracking can be incorporated into electronic devices, such as Internet of Things devices, Wearables, Smart Home devices, robots, drones, toys, and more. These devices don't have mobile operating systems to run apps, but they can do incredibly cool things if they can track locations accurately. New chips profiled in this report are delivering location positioning in a way that can be implemented effectively in devices - accurate, low power, small chips, easy integration, and more.

Second, some of the chips profiled are next generations of chips already in the market, either GPS chips, Wi-Fi chips or sensor analysis chips. If previous generations of these chips are already incorporated in today's smartphones, then the new generations of these chips, with indoor positioning capabilities, are slated to be incorporated into 2016's smartphones. This means that the chips profiled here are poised to bring indoor location to smartphones, soon.

Third, chips can often perform indoor location positioning more effectively, closer to the sensors or radios, without waiting for application processors to get around to running an app. Many of the chips profiled have a refresh rate of hundreds of times per second, much better than smartphone software can usually do.

If you want to know more, check out the report, or contact us at info@grizzlyanalytics.com for more information.

Intel demos indoor location technology in new Wi-Fi chips at MWC 2015

Intel made several announcements at MWC 2015, including a new chipset for wireless connectivity (Wi-Fi) in mobile devices. This new chipset, the 8270, include in-chip support for indoor location positioning. Below we explain their technology and show a video of it in action. With this announcement, Intel joins Broadcom, Qualcomm and other chip makers in moving broad indoor location positioning into mobile device hardware.

The transition of indoor location positioning into chips is a trend identified in the newest Grizzly Analytics report on Indoor Location Positioning Technologies, released the week before MWC 2015. By moving indoor location positioning from software into hardware, chips such as Intel's enable location positioning to run continuously and universally, without using device CPU, and with less power consumption.

Intel's technology delivers 1-3 meter accuracy, using a technique called multilateration, generating a new location estimate every second. While 1-3 meter …

Seeing Quuppa's indoor location technology at MWC 2015

I first met Fabio and Kimmo from Quuppa in 2012, before Quuppa existed, when they had spent years researching indoor location positioning technologies at Nokia Research Center. Less than a year after that they formed Quuppa, independent of Nokia, to bring their technology to market. At the time I called Quuppa "the newest and oldest in indoor location positioning."

Fast forward two and a half years. Their technology has reached market, it can now track both smartphones and BLE devices, and it's accurate to within 20-50cm. Before reading more about their technology, take a look at a video of their demo in action:

Grizzly Analytics has analyzed indoor location technologies by over 150 companies, and virtually all of the radio-based technologies operate by measuring the distance between the device being tracked and other radio devices, and using these distance measurements for either multilateration or fingerprinting. For example, the well known BLE beacons measure a device…

Robot Camera Foreshadows an Era of Location-Aware Electronics

A French company called Move 'N See produces a line of camera robots. Their devices act as a smart tripod, holding a video camera and automatically moving and zooming the camera as people of interest move around a site.

The idea is simple but amazingly innovative. Photo selfies are easy to take, but video selfies are next to impossible. How can I video myself playing football or doing gymnastics, without setting the camera so far back as to be useless? Do spectators want to spend an entire sporting event carefully videoing their friend or relative moving around the field?
Enter Move 'N See's "personal robot cameramen." Their devices aim, pan and zoom a video camera as one or more people move around an area. The people of interest wear armbands whose locations are tracked, enabling the camera controller to know where to aim the camera. The camera controller also includes enough smarts to adjust the camera smoothly and to capture multiple people evenly. The armband…

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