Recently we introduced our new Location Beacons. Wondering what’s coming next? You already know about SDK 4.0, so it’s time to talk about the Indoor Location SDK and how Location Beacons bring new opportunities to explore it.
We are thrilled to announce that Indoor Location now works in the background. What exactly does this mean? Position tracking is possible even when the app is not actively running. And it’s already available in the App Store, give it a try!
Now you see me
Indoor navigation finds its use across many industries such as retail, hospitality, event management, and more.
But here’s the question: how do I make sure people are actually using my app so I can locate them? We might be more and more involved with our smartphones, but there are times when they just rest in our pockets. What then? Just disappear from the map? Not exactly what we are aiming for, is it?
You kept asking us about this, so we made sure the position is not lost even when the app isn’t running. Now you can enable background mode in our Indoor app and you’ll be able to trail user movement in your saved location.
You can always tell the difference if user is looking at the app or it’s in the background. If it’s the latter, you’ll see a ghost avatar.
Don’t worry about the battery. We’ve made sure that energy consumption isn’t drastically affected, so you can expect something similar to iBeacon background monitoring.
How to enable Indoor Location in background?
Here’s what you need to try it out:
- Indoor app version 1.10
Update our Indoor app to the newest version and make sure to enable background mode in settings. Here’s how it looks like:
- Location Beacons
Your Indoor Location has to be mapped with Location Beacons. Remember that to create a location you need a minimum of four beacons (one per wall). You can get new Location Beacons here.
- Customized UUID
When you first receive your beacons, they all come with default UUID. To use Indoor Location in the background, please customize the UUID of your beacons.
- Public or your own location
Indoor positioning in background will work with every public location you are in as well as with locations you’ve created yourself.
There’s ton of new things you can do with Indoor Location now. It’s a great opportunity for shops, museums, and other public spaces that have Indoor Location implemented: the interaction with the visitor can be triggered even when they are not using the app at the moment. Listen to an audio guide as soon as you reach the sculpture or get a coupon when you’re right next to a product in a store.
The possibilities are countless and we are sure your imagination is already sparked.
We are eager to know how it goes for you, so try it out and share your experience on Twitter or via mail.
Liliya Matsuk, Community Manager at Estimote