Existing technologies work fairly well when helping consumers extract value from their locations… except when they are indoors. You can find the nearest drugstore with Google Maps, but it won’t help you find the shampoo you’re looking for. You can find the Pokemon you are looking for on the street, but good luck once you’re inside the mall. We spend as much time inside as we do outside. Unfortunately, just like when we’re trying to find the latest restaurant without GPS, we can get lost indoors all the same!
At Estimote, we believe that context is king, and the context of knowing exactly where you are is the king of kings! That’s why we released the Indoor Location solution two years ago, and we have since iterated on it till it can fuel all possible needs. Today we are launching a significant update to Estimote Indoor Location, bringing the accuracy level needed for all your apps to flourish.
The king of kings - the context of where you are
That grounding feeling of knowing exactly where you are is incomparable to anything else. Whether you are lost in the large unknown office looking for that one specific conference room, or lost in the midst of countless shop aisles trying to find the exact product you always use it would be ideal to never get lost and always know where the items you seek are located. With Estimote Indoor Location, users of your app can know exactly where everything is in relation to their particular place.
The context of knowing exact locations can be leveraged even further. Knowing where the bulk of your customers are congregating can let you proactively assure there are enough employees in the area to assist and advise them. Finding each other in the large office is way easier when not only do you know where you are, but also knowing where your coworker or interviewer is located. And it doesn’t end there! Just think about what the context of position allowed Pokemon Go or Uber to deliver to their users.
We listened and we iterated. We listened more, and we iterated more.
When we launched the very first version of Indoor Location, it worked in small spaces and required you to place beacons at chest height. We listened to your feedback, and got back to work. Just a few months later, we released an update with improved stability and accuracy, followed by a massive upgrade to the mapping tool: better optimized for larger spaces.
Working with really large locations was one of our customers’ pain points. Beacon placement was another one. Soon we released the Indoor Light navigation mode. While it could be a bit less responsive, it proved to be way more stable and fitting for such demanding conditions. We even made it work in background, to let you leverage the user position constantly for even more interesting use cases!
Give the people what they need - precise user positioning
The accuracy provided by Indoor Light navigation mode was good, but not good enough for too many use cases. Today, we are proud to present to you its highly improved version! Not only have we increased the position granularity, resulting in vastly improved accuracy. We also improved its responsiveness and stability. All of these features allow you to leverage the context of knowing precisely where you are.
Navigating through large locations can be hard with screens of mobile devices, and it certainly was with the previous version of the app. For a better experience, we have completely redesigned the app, making it more intuitive, with smooth transitions, and added common drag, pan, and zoom gestures for easier usage of the maps. It is also in the SDK to let you immediately build your first proof of concept.
Don’t just take our word for it. Just try it yourself! Everything you need is the Estimote Indoor Location app and just a few Estimote Location Beacons!
Got any questions or ideas to share?Let us know!