Indoor Location — Why Beacons are a good idea?

Joana Henriques
Jul 27, 2017 · 2 min read

Today, many of the existing mobile apps take advantage of geolocation that can be useful for different purposes like browsing and tracking. Beyond navigating from one place to another, it’s possible to display restaurants, churches, schools, public transportation stops ... It is also possible to search things considering the user’s current location and so making the information more specific and useful to them.

A device using GPS, may be delayed in obtaining satellite information, as well as it consumes power in the process, since all necessary calculations are made by the same. A-GPS (uses existing servers -mobile towers- and databases to obtain information from satellites, which means that there are no delays since the data is already stored on the servers) returns a more precise location than GPS, however the use of Wi-Fi greatly increases the accuracy of location when used with this system.

Both systems return exact locations, the problem is when the mobile device is inside buildings. It is possible to discover the location using the GPS signals that pass through the windows and the help of Wi-Fi, but it is not enough for an exact location.

Currently there are frameworks that can return a more accurate location on mobile devices: better accuracy and better response. Some of them already return the altitude, but when it comes to buildings, the important thing is to return the floor. It is then necessary to implement a solution for indoor location, and this is where the beacons come in. It is possible to know the exact location when inside buildings and they also allow the interaction with the mobile device.

Beacon is a small piece of hardware with the ability to easily be placed in
any space
and which transmits information in regular intervals for mobile devices using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), working well as an indoor positioning system. The use of BLE is important because the power consumption is considerably lower than the use of Bluetooth Standard. This low power consumption increases the life of Beacon batteries, lasting for months or even a few years, and sure, this encourages the investment in this technology.

The physical representation of a Beacon Region is the set of all Beacons present in that region. Each region has a unique identifier. The mobile app that receives an information packet from a Beacon, is able to parse it and understand what content it matches and what to do with that content. With this information and the right logic in the app, it’s possibly to identify where the user is exactly like in what floor, the section of the house, the exact store in the mall, the exact section in that store and so much more.

Joana Henriques

Written by

Passionate about iOS Apps • Programmer by choice. Traveler by chance. • #Foodie #SuperheroesAddicted • Software Engineer @ebankIT

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