Where bets are placed on new technologies? Prominent venture capital (VC) firms are investing in companies with solutions for indoor location. But with over 50 companies to choose from and at least ten unique technologies, it is difficult to judge who will in the winner’s circle. No leader early to put money in, and unlike other location-based mapping as markets expect this market to support many competitors and not be dominated by a few. The vertical markets that are ripe for indoor location accuracy have different needs, cost and speed. Promising applications include retail, publishing, manufacturing, asset tracking, games, intelligence and public safety, but who knows what other applications will emerge. GPS has infiltrated daily life in ways unimaginable at the start.
Without the obvious favorite technology, many companies hedge their bets and offer multiple technological solutions. With the already installed along the great indoors infrastructure, the easiest solution seems to be Wi-Fi triangulation. While the cost may be attractive, the precision is not accurate enough for many applications. Other solutions include fingerprint Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, sensors and beacons
Some companies are offering technologies outside the mainstream. ByteLight offers LED-based lights mounted on the roof that generate rapid pulses which can not be seen by people solution. A smart phone can detect the pulses and triangular position by identifying different lights pulse pattern. Atlas Indoo.rs indoor and use sensors to detect natural magnetic fields of the Earth for positioning. Camera technology is being used by WhereLab and Omiimii. Object recognition software determines the location.
The accuracy requirements of the applications will drive the choice of technologies. Low accuracy is more than 11 meters, and the average precision is six to ten meters. High accuracy is one five meters. High precision solutions are generally more expensive and require more infrastructure.
Apple iBeacon Changes to opt out
Everything Apple does care barns, including iBeacon indoor location, using Bluetooth low energy to communicate to phones and computers. Apple has some display cases, including some Eagle and Safeway grocery stores using the iBeacon to send marketing messages to customers. The Pebble smartwatch iBeacon added support and apparently you can focus on a lost phone. iBeacon technology in some of the doors of Virgin Atlantic can trigger an application to automatically display a boarding pass when approaching traveler. Behere automates attendance.
I often write about privacy issues, so I wonder, where are the advocates of technological privacy iBeacon are challenging Apple? You would think that would be a tangle of permissions required for users, including turning on the light and give a permission to the application to locate the user and to receive notifications. Apparently, Apple thought that the permits were difficult to handle. Apple users had to choose to activate iBeacon, but in March with the new version of iOS, the default opt-out changed.
Apple users may not be aware that an application using the iBeacon not have to be open to interact with the phone. If you installed the Safeway application, you will receive messages from the store, even when the app is not running and the phone screen is locked. Although iBeacons not track users or collect data from them, it seems JavaScript is disturbing.
The stores are struggling to compete with online shopping and are looking for ways to interact with buyers when they come through the door. This interaction may be loyalty points, or special offers custom greetings. Only three percent of retailers currently have the ability to identify customers coming through their doors, according to a survey of the leading retailers of Boston Retail Partners. ABI Research predicts beacons will be installed in 30,000 locations worldwide at the end of the year. If only beacons can generate such widespread use as fast, it’s easy to see why companies indoor positioning technology have been a magnet for venture capitalists.
Remember the scene in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise walks into a clothing store? As Cruise passes through advertising, which address him by name. Indoor location can get creepy.
Source: who will win at indoor location?
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