The navigation ecosystem is changing rapidly. I’ve mentioned in previous posts the consequences of the commoditization of GPS devices. During the last two weeks, I had the opportunity to read many articles about how the navigation market is changing.
This is a time of WAR.
The New York Times published in October Stops and Starts of GPS Apps “… those portable devices [GARMIN TOMTOM etc] are under attack from a new source: the smartphone, and particularly Apple’s iPhone. The newest version of the iPhone’s operating system supports turn-by-turn navigation … According to a report from the iSuppli research firm, GPS applications for smartphones are about to explode, growing from 2.5 percent of users today to 10.5 percent in 2013. And half of those will be iPhone owners…”
Even Forbes Magazine refers to this trend in warfare terms Google’s Navigation Bombshell “…Location-based service providers suspect the search giant is working on a free navigation app… Google, which generally gives its software away for free and recoups its investment through advertising, would likely sell ads within the navigation application rather than charge users… In early October, Google decided to use this data for its U.S. maps, ending a licensing agreement with map provider Tele Atlas…The shift is telling because companies like Tele Atlas require partners (such as Google) to pay fees for each person who uses their data…”
Having Google in the market with free navigation applications redefines the battle. Companies will need to be really brave to fight this giant. Without any doubt Google gave a completely new meaning to “The Land of the FREE and the home of the Brave”…
If War is what we are speaking about, Sun Tzu teaches us three valuable lessons. The first is that “…in war, numbers alone confer no advantage…”. The second is that “…as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness…”, and the third is that “… those skilled in war subdue the enemy’s army without battle …. They conquer by strategy…”
If this is about strategy, this is my game!
Avoiding the competitor’s strengths and striking at their weaknesses
All (accurate) navigation systems are based on GPS data. If the weakness of GPS receivers is that they need a clear view to the sky to successfully determine location, the strategy is to attack the indoor world. Additionally, the GPS accuracy lies between 50 to 500 feet, the strategy then is to find customers that need higher accuracy (~10 feet). The third, but not the last weakness, is the need for maps. As we saw before, Google has generated large amount of map data, and in general the market is dominated by TeleAtlas and Navteq. The strategy is to navigate to “uncharted territories”.
Redefining the Battleground – Embracing indoor navigation.
A few weeks ago I was approached by an inventor with a (published) patent. The general idea calls for an indoor navigation system that uses no GPS data. His idea is very good and to my judgment relatively easy to implement.
The system automatically detects a signal directly from sensors, without requiring the communication with a central system, data plans, or even cellular communication. These sensors are small pocketsize Bluetooth transceivers. There is no need for pairing as every Bluetooth device’s tag has a unique ID. This ID can be used for locating the tag.
Indoor navigation – A winning strategy that redefines the navigation ecosystem?
There is infinite number of indoor navigation applications. The most intuitive one is a person walking into a mall that wishes to locate a specific store, or a particular aisle in a department store or even a specific item on a shelf! From here, you can apply the same principle to a customer looking for a specific conference room, a particular booth in a tradeshow, a ride in an amusement park, or a known piece of art in a museum. If not for the convenience, do it to save a tree. No more printed maps. Go Green!!!
The advantage of using Bluetooth is that this technology is ubiquitous, it’s implemented everywhere. Additionally, is a low cost, low power technology, and when it’s relatively free of obstruction it can provide a ~2 meter error range. Furthermore, a Bluetooth infrastructure can be used for purposes like remote monitoring and control among others.
The ecosystem is completely redefined. An architect with CAD drawings is now a map provider. Every single facility is now a navigable site. Every big retailer willing to drive customers to specific products is a potential customer (they can “route” them through the sales isles if they want). Every shopping property management firm is a customer, as well as convention centers organizations or associations like the Global Retail Executive Council.
We have an ecosystem where the traditional navigation giants are not necessarily present, and there is no defined leader (yet-11/09).
The business opportunity – define a new market![Indoor Navigation Business Model]( "Indoor Navigation Business Model")
Indoor Navigation redefines Location Based Services as we know them today. The first companies to enter this market will be able to define, create, implement and license ($) new standards and applications. Imagine this: I installed an indoor navigation application in my phone/PDA and subsequently downloaded the map of the mall I usually go to. Next week I’ll visit San Francisco, and upon arrival I would like to visit a local shopping center, or use it at the convention I’ll attend. My application will be useful ONLY if the map of that SF mall or convention center is compatible with the one installed in my phone. For sure I’ll NOT install an additional application per site I visit. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Sounds interesting? Ring a bell? Would you like to exponentiate these ideas? Maybe invest time AND money?
Give me a call! (And leave your comments).
Comments
I love your Sun Tzu inclusion. At this point, I would say Google’s only weakness is Apple’s strength. Those that can leverage the later’s strength, I suspect, will be part of winning (or on par) competitive strategy, indoor and/or outdoors!
Wow! This was something that I have been thinking about for some time now. I worked with Magellan for 14 years and Tom Tom for two years so I have alot of experience with GPS and what it can and cannot do. This fall I attended CTIA and several of us were talking about this exact idea. I am seriously interested in this as I see huge potential here from both the consumer and the public (ie. emergency crews, etc) sectors. I am not an investor but would love to be involved with this project.
With the new advancements of bluetooth technology and the processing capabilities of today’s Smartphones this is just the tip of the iceberg for “indoor navigation” or navigating within a tightly enclosed area in general. With the current applications which are already being developed by Iphone, Android and other smartphone users theres no telling where the world of mapping/GIS will be taken to in the near future. When I was in school I had a colleague who created a GIS on a hockey rink and showed how the technology could help out players/coaches and the game alike, and while watching TV a little while ago I saw a documentary on a rugby team which wore gps devices and every movement was tracked and from there the coaches analyzed the game and came up with new game plans for the team and coaching methods for individual players. These are just some small examples of where these technologies are being used today and how this might expand in the future. But also watch out for some major competitors for the iPhone in the near future and applications should be developed with compatibility for these products as well as some of these competitors are releasing some really powerful tools and applications along with their powerful new phones.
Sorry I went off on a bit of a tangent there but I am full of excitement for these new technologies and can’t wait to see what will be done next.
Jeff
I think you have missed a key element here. The ability to find a particular IPhone no matter where it is, inside or outside. Here are a few suggestions:
1. lost child reporting. I realize that small children may not have an IPhone, or do they? You could locate them in a mall or in the mall parking lot or ten miles away.
2. Dementia patients often roam away from Assisted Living Facilities and private homes. Yes, I can alarm the doors to try to stop them before they go out but what if a relative signed them out? Could also help the dementia patient locate thier room should they become confused.
3. Simple way to locate mall security people in an emergency. In house or in the parking lot.
I am sure there are many more “i.e advertise a store while the customer is in front of the store in the mall”.
Technology is a wonderful thing when it uses you instead of you learning how to use it.
Interesting concept, but for some reason it reminds me of “multi-modal transportation” content…if you build it, they will come, but who’s building it?
Are any malls/amusement parks planning to install the required sensors soon? If so, are any companies writing Aps to use the sensors? Any small-scale Alpha or Beta deployments anywhere yet?
re: Paul’s comment…..
There are plenty of “tracking” solutions already for pets/children/patients.
I think the issue being discussed here is indoor “turn-by-turn navigation instructions”, not tracking.
Have you seen http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/ ?
I see that comming too.
I am spezialised in sensor-networks using WLAN or Bluetooth. On this base you can easily implement location algorithms. You will have to deal with the short range of bluetooth sensors and how to power them, though.
Nowadays you have 2D/3D maps or mothern buildings which could be used, without having to create them.
Since the tags know where they are already, there’s no need to provide an ID of the tag, just have the tag broadcast its location. There are many solutions available today – there just isn’t a broad adoption of a particular technology on the scale of GPS (or even WiFi positioning).
Personally I believe hyperlocal content is the new gold rush, not the system for determining location, at least at a larger scale.
How about having the location and routs to all of the thousands of portable defibrilators (AED’s) available to people in malls, airports, high-rise buildings? That would save lives. Now take it a step further and have those locations available to 911 call centers who can instruct a caller where to find the nearest AED.
True, indoor nagigation is simply an extension of the ‘outdoor’ one that Google and Microsoft et al have already well established. So, problem is still the same about how to illustrate info thats useful and easy to read. Personally, I believe an inside to Google’s Streetwise would cover this concept very effeciently – look at what they are doing with cyclists dragging cameras behind them (http://iguidez.com/blog/2009/07/07/a-googlist-googles-new-soldier/)
Furthermore, relying on individual shopping malls to upload their own maps will probably not work either. Again, it needs somebody to go around and kick their ass into gear. For years we at iGuidez have been making video guides of museums etc and even with their full support and over-enthusiastic responses at the finished product they still can’t get around to adding links to their homepages. So, the real end goal or profit will still only fall to those who are prepared to do the real dirty work at the end of the day. Automation or DIY jobs in this location based service industry is in my opinion the equivalent to being a taboo!
Ho Hum … my company is performing a trial in the North of England implementing many of the ideas discussed here.
The trial is to prove a new service to assist management of public areas; locate key staff , keep and eye on equipment, provide market research data, provide assistance for persons with impaired vision.
Key staff (security, first aid, etc) locations and contact details displayed on facility maps,
Medical equipment, cleaning trolleys, wheelchairs, etc again located on floor schematics but with automatic alert when removed and automatic inventory control.
Shopper marketing data gathered and formed automatically into reports of customer numbers and behaviour. This includes number visiting each zone in each time period dwell time in each zone, etc (zones of various sizes, typically 20metres square).
Persons with impaired vision can request reassurance messages at any location they require, say to receive an automatic voicemail message when outside Boots the chemist.
Primarily we are using Bluetooth but in harness with other sensors, the trial site is a shopping complex with indoor and outdoor sections.
http://www.eyedpro.cpm , please visit the website, we hope to have publicity material and so on available over the next weeks, you have caught us in the technical part of the trial so please bear with us.
Looks like a micro-market, but a may be a good one. Hard to tell if it will take off. If you’ve even been at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, you can understand why someone would want it in certain locations. 🙂
My company, Point Inside, created a technology we call the Indoor Navigation Engine. Using INE, we are working with owners of large indoor locations to digitize their floor plans and cad drawings. We recently launched a beta version of our iPhone application which offers access to over 400 shopping centers across North America.
Although the feature is not yet available on the iPhone, with INE we can generate indoor walking directions to / from any location including hybrid indoor-to-outdoor directions. Look for this feature to be available on the iPhone and Android phones very soon.
We are aggressively expanding beyond shopping centers, working with owners and managers of other large indoor locations.
Feel free to contact me via http://www.pointinside.com for more information
Jon
We explored Bluetooth-based navigation and positioning for a senior design project at UC Santa Cruz. See http://urna.projects.unoc.net/ for details and a video demo. Although other RF technologies can provide better accuracy at lower power levels, it is the ubiquity of Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices that gives it huge potential due to the potential market size. Even the latest Bluetooth specs from the Bluetooth SIG are more friendly to low-power applications, so this might finally become a reality!
I have a feeling the future of indoor positioning is going to be a hybrid solution consisting of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Near-Field Communications (NFC) and/or RFID tags. 🙂
– Amir
I agree that indoor navigation has huge potential and it is great to see trials going on using Bluetooth. The weakness at the moment is getting across the awareness curve, creating an application that is sufficiently compelling for people to give it a try. I have no doubt though, based on recent developments that one day mall owners and others will have troops showing people how to download apps at the mall, with ecoupons, treasure hunts and prizes and within 12 months everyone will be using it. Don’t forget the GeoVector compass with GPS and that satellites within 5-10 years will also be getting reasonable (not great) penetration into buildings. GPS assist with Bluetooth and cell tower location could become extremely accurate. I live and love this space.
Trackbacks for this post