Blook8r

Indoor positioning system using Bluetooth Low Energy beacons

London

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Technologies Used

Android

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Matt Williams

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zmarties

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About

Blook8r (pronounced blue-cater) is an indoor positioning system using Bluetooth Low Energy (aka iBeacons on iOS). While the technology has many applications, we have focussed on advert-driven retail for this hackathon. Our Android app enables you to scan a QR code on an advert for a Christoper Ward watch in the Canary Wharf magazine, for it to locate you within Level 39 and then to display your current location and your nearest store. Location can be both displayed on a map and in a 3D model (since Canary Wharf is a tower, vertical location is very important!) Note that Bluetooth Low Energy is a very recent smartphone feature and the APIs are quite basic - as part of our hack we had to write the beacon-tracking and triangulation logic to pinpoint the location.

Comments

james.olver - 3508d

Awesome tech - have I seem similar with PayPal Beacon?

Matt Williams - 3506d

Yes, PayPal beacons are based on the same Bluetooth Low Energy technology. I'm not sure whether they have APIs to support triangulating based on signal-strength.

Amina Waters - 3508d

High potential solution with many applications. Very interesting - but would like to know more about how many devices will support it and how many beacons are needed.

Matt Williams - 3506d

On device support, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy#Hardware lists a selection of devices including all recent iPhones plus a selection of Android devices (which is incomplete - the HTC One X I was demoing on isn't listed).

Matt Williams - 3506d

I suspect a bigger issue here could be OS support - you need Android Jellybean or later (which isn't that widely-deployed yet) and I've heard a rumor that the iBeacon (iOS) API doesn't expose signal-strength (required for triangulation).

Matt Williams - 3506d

On number of beacons, the range of each one is good - we could still detect beacons in the Level39 auditorium from just outside the lifts! However, triangulation accuracy drops off at this range, so I guess one every 5-10m would be needed.

Matt Williams - 3506d

zmarties - 3504d

Indoor positioning on Apple devices is going to be a real challenge.

Michael Huet - 3508d

QR codes seem to be restrictive. The triangulation and path finding is interesting technology. Love the 3D mapping.

Matt Williams - 3506d

The QR code approach wasn't necessary - a target could be selected by any means - sorry we weren't clear! Thanks for the comment on the 3D map - it was lots of fun to build and if I have time I'm going to extract it into a separate (open-source) library.

Sanford Dickert - 3508d

Internal beacon solution - nice product idea. Needs more on the interface design.

Christian Owens - 3508d

A very cool idea, and I can see potential uses for it in large buildings/ conferences. Incredibly cool and innovative technology.

Tom Packer - 3508d

Very impressive tech, lots of potential applications. Particularly good for indoor use.

Nathan Humphreys - 3508d

Cool idea. great hack. fantastic work for just a weekend hacking!