CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ibeaconindoor-positioning-system
Monergy
Monergy

Reputation: 939

iBeacon indoor map 'heat map'

I'm sure we have all heard of apples iBeacon by now... We've been working on a few projects using the technology and have been wondering about one usage that I have seen others promoting.. that is using the LE Bluetooth radios to create a dwell time heat map in a space...

The concept sounds simple enough place a LE Beacon in an area and as people pass by it 'counts' that person which is then overlaid over a store map to create traffic patterns.. that's the claim. I'm trying to figure out how that can be possible?

The concept uses the mobile device on the passerby as the 'trigger' for the count. There is no way at all to achieve this with out the user having a certain app downloaded on their device correct? The only feasible way I can see it working is if the user has an app downloaded on their device and that app pings a web server every time it sees a beacon.. that is then mapped.. but that also will use data and battery resources on the mobile device which most likely will result in the user deleting the app before long...

This also leaves a large number of passers by who will not be accounted for... making the results very difficult to quantify.

Am I wrong in this assumption? Is there something that I'm missing?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2631

Answers (1)

davidgyoung
davidgyoung

Reputation: 64961

Your analysis of the possibilities and challenges of the technology are largely correct. My company, Radius Networks, has done similar traffic visualizations for large events.

A few points:

  • Even if most users do not have an app on their phone, the data are still valuable if there are enough to provide a representative statistical sample.

  • When using iBeacons for this purpose, you must have quite coarse grained locations for two reasons:

    1. The range of Bluetooth LE is about 50 meters.

    2. Assuming the users will only be passively running the app in the background, beacon detection can take minutes on iOS.

Combining the two challenges above, you can really only use the technology to do this for very large venues.

  • The battery drain is not really a problem if the phone only wakes up every few minutes to report a beacon detection to a server.

Upvotes: 1

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