iBeacon technologies and applications are gradually becoming a trend that cannot be ignored. I went to Taiwan to attend the 2014 Computex and felt lucky to be able to personally experience the Computex's iBeacon locating and navigation service. Although indoor LBS APP is not new in the menu, and I have had many good LBS APP experiences in the US such as Meridian, Wifarer and other smaller indoor APPs, the indoor navigation experience at Computex Taiwan still has some interesting features that is worth sharing.
After Apple introduced iBeacon in 2013 WWDC, a flock of hardware vendors began offering iBeacon compatible hardwares in the market. However, I have not seen any large application until Computex 2014. I believe this the first large application of iBeacon in exhibitions. What’s incredible here is Computex actually made it come true within less than a year. The effort and resources devoted to this memorable milestone is definitely beyond imagination.
When experiencing the navigation in the hall, I started to think of the position of the beacons. Where did they attached it? I looked at the various stalls and guessed if they have placed the beacons on each booth; however, I did not see any suspicious hardware around the booths. Then something run into my mind “since it is not down in the booths, maybe it is attached on the ceiling?” I looked up and saw some white circular device that is uniformly about 3-5 meters away from each other. I know I found the beacons. However, looking at the density of the beacons, about 1~2 beacons cover a booth so there must be at least a thousand beacons attached up on the ceiling to be able to cover the whole floor. Also, I found that the middle part of the World Trade Center does not have ceiling, it is like an open courtyard (the only ceiling is 4th floor high); not sure where did they put the beacons for this open area.
Although the locating speed is not very fast at the start (it takes about a minute to show my position on the map), the positioning accuracy is quite good compared to other LBS APP I have tried before. The visual error is about 2 meters. Another point that amazed me is the fluency of the change in position. It is very smooth and response immediately according to my behavior which indicate that they should have used combinations of inertial technology to improve positioning experience. I have to say that this experience is better than Meridian but I found that I have to hold the phone in a fixed position. If I waved or accidentally swung the phone, the position slightly deviate. One more impressing point about the experience is the heading, I can clearly see which direction I am facing. It is accurate enough to help determine the direction of the visitors. This is very handy for those have problem reading maps. I also tested the Android version and the result is not satisfying. It does not only take too long to locate my position at the beginning, the accuracy is also quite bad. Not sure why there is such big difference on the accuracy between iOS and Android. The map is also not user-friendly, hope it can be improved in the next event. Overall, I am very happy to have the chance to experience this technology.
I am quite curious which company’s solution did Computex 2014 used for according to my understanding, iBeacon mainly focus on proximity rather than positioning and navigating.
indoor nvai test video:
I found a lot of iBeacons...
沒有留言:
張貼留言