This document discusses indoor location and positioning technologies. It provides an overview of current approaches such as WiFi, beacons, light, sound, and magnetic systems. It then discusses applications for indoor positioning like navigation, contextual product information, and analytics. Finally, it considers some challenges for implementing indoor positioning solutions including costs, privacy, data management, and customer acceptance.

1. Sean O Sullivan
twitter: @sos100 blog: blog.mylocalsocial.com
1
Indoor Location & Positioning

2. Why
Indoor Location and Positioning
How
Quick tour of current approaches
What
Applications and uses
You
How might you use it?
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3. Why
Indoor Location and Positioning
How
Quick tour of current approaches
What
Applications and uses
You
How might you use it?
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3
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4. GPS
Great Outdoors

5. 90%
Time most Americans spend indoors

6. Retail
Indoors, underground, few external
windows…

8. Why
Indoor Location and Positioning
How
Quick tour of current approaches
What
Applications and uses
You
How might you use it?
1
2
3
4

9. Omitted for now: cell tower, camera
Indoor Location Current Approaches
WiFi
Beacons
Light
Either fingerprint or triangulate WiFi
Access Points or Beacons
Sound
How Comment
All mobile platform vendors use this
(see next)
Magnetic
Dead Reckoning
Dedicated Beacons used to mark
areas or zones
Apple iBeacon recently became the
poster child for this
Special Lights emit a unique code
invisible to human eye
Front facing camera detects the
code
Sound inaudible to the human ear ShopKick pioneered this in US
Fingerprint of magnetic field
variations used to fix position
Area is first mapped in order to
create a magnetic field map
Direction, Speed, Turns, Height,
Requires a known fixed starting
point (often GPS or WiFi)

10. Omitted for now: cell tower, camera
Indoor Location Current Approaches
WiFi
Beacons
Light
Either fingerprint or triangulate WiFi
Access Points or Beacons
Sound
How Comment
All mobile platform vendors use this
(see next)
Magnetic
Dead Reckoning
Dedicated Beacons used to mark
areas or zones
Apple iBeacon recently became the
poster child for this
Special Lights emit a unique code
invisible to human eye
Front facing camera detects the
code
Sound inaudible to the human ear ShopKick pioneered this in US
Fingerprint of magnetic field
variations used to fix position
Area is first mapped in order to
create a magnetic field map
Direction, Speed, Turns, Height,
Requires a known fixed starting
point (often GPS or WiFi)

11. 11
Apple iBeacon
3rd Party Hardware, plus every iOS device!

12. WiFi already being used to help position you…
Ever wondered about this?
Appeared since
iOS7
Has been here
“forever”

13. 13

15. Why
Indoor Location and Positioning
How
Quick tour of current approaches
What
Applications and uses
You
How might you use it?
1
2
3
4

16. 16

17. Navigation

18. Navigate to Brand

19. Major League Baseball

20. Welcomes / Goods Pick-up

21. Contextual Product Information
Digital Product Cards for “what’s near” - plus,
Greetings, Offers, Walk-in Points, more++

22. Navigation
Savills on Show

23. 100 of the top 100 US retailers : trials or deployments now
Momentum…
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24. Why
Indoor Location and Positioning
How
Quick tour of current approaches
What
Applications and uses
You
How might you use it?
1
2
3
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25. In-store location and the customer journey
Journey and Context
Arrival
Welcome / Greeting. Personal
concierge (“whisk away”). Alert
to staff member.
Departure
Thanks. “by the way…”,
RAOK.
Find / Browse
Self-service on phone - “how can
we help today?”. “Let us come to
you”. Insertion point for relevant
information, offer, or reminder. Here
to pick something up? Timer for
being dealt with. Partner brands?
Here for Action
Pick up. Queue jump. Get
service with reduced friction,
uncertainty.
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26. Think about…
Things to consider
Whole solution Cost, ubiquity, accuracy, likely changes
Privacy One word: Nordstorm! Opt-in, opt-out. What’s best
practise?
Data Can you handle, process, manage the data that will flow?
Customers Handled poorly, can spook people
Trials Timings, customer segmentation, use-cases (simple!)
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27. More information
Don Dodge StreetFight Blogs
Works @ Google, Developer
Advocate, Google Ventures,
Investor
Covers nearly everything that
moves involving HyperLocal
Ads, Publishing, indoor
advertising, etc.
blog.mylocalsocial.com
BEEKN

28. Sean O Sullivan
twitter: @sos100 blog: blog.mylocalsocial.com
28
Indoor Location & Positioning

29. In Store Engagement Platform
twitter: @localsocial blog: blog.mylocalsocial.com
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30. Me
3
1986 1995 2000 2009 now
College
Computer Science,
SW Dev & Design @
NCB (Stock / Money
broking), NZI
IONA
VP, Professional Services, EU
R&D Projects
Rococo Software
Java / Bluetooth
Infrastructure
Software, Raised VC,
300M Handsets
LocalSocial
Proximity platform; in-
store engagement for
retailers (BLE, iBeacon,
WiFi, NFC)
Dial2Do
Spin-out, raised
funding, voice services
mySay
Realtime messaging
for mobile workforce
2010