Our positioning technology uses GPS outdoors. But the satellite signals do not penetrate buildings, and consequently, quickly degrade as you move indoors. An alternative method is therefore required indoors.
Once inside a building, we switch to positioning smartphones using our own Sail IPS. This works by sensing Bluetooth signals from fixed position transmitters around your site. It combines this with inertial (movement) sensing on mobile phones to achieve navigation-ready positioning.
So the first step is to install beacons at the venue and record their positions on a floorplan uploaded to our console. Or floorplans if there are multiple levels and/or multiple buildings - we support both use cases. Read our guide to floorplans article for more detail.
The Positioning Configuation>Beacons screen will help you determine if you have an adequate density of beacon coverage, and also provides useful beacon management features.
Once you have beacons installed and the positions of these beacons recorded on the console, then indoor positioning will work on any mobile device with an app that has our SDK correctly authenticated, without any further set-up. A unique feature of our Sail technology is that it doesn't require any fingerprinting or calibration.
That means it is suitable for any indoor environment - even large-scale temporary events such as tradeshows or exhibitions where the physical environment is transformed in a matter of hours, and there is no time for complex calibration.