Are we doing it wrong?

Indoor Location
1

Hello. We are trying out Estimote Indoor Location for a school project, and so far we have only bad data from testing.
And since that is the case, are we doing it wrong?

We have 2 sets (6 beacons) and put up 4-6 beacons each time. Sometimes one beacon per wall and other times 2 beacons on 2 walls. Mapping of the room has been better at times when we used all 6 beacons in larger areas rather than only the 4 of them.

We have mapped the room, after several tries with iphone 4s (which is not the best device for indoor location), not too good room mapping. Then when we got ourself a hand on a iphone 5s, room mapping was clearly better. But when we are going to test the positioning everything goes wrong. At one time we can be in the other side of the room, even though we have been standind still all along. Just move the phone and it will think you’re walking.

Been searching around if we could turn off the gyroscope and/or accelerometer and only depend on the beacon signals. If there is a way, please comment in this thread.

So yeah, the test application used for mapping moves when we move the phone, not very good in my opinion. It’s good if you actually ARE moving in the direction, but since you standing still, not so good.

Last thing I wanna mention and ask community team, how fast should a beacon and the device figure out where it is in the room? Because standing still (and this time holding the device still so the app doesn’t think you’re moving in the direction you’re facing), doesn’t put you in your actuall position. It might do, but that seems to take ages. You only see the mark on the map going slowly and slightly in your direction. We have not yet actually seen it come all the way back to our actuall location when standing still.

So the question comes again, are we doing it wrong?

2

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about the problems. First thing to check is: are your beacons properly configured? The proper settings to optimize for Indoor Location are listed right here: https://community.estimote.com/hc/en-us/articles/203821206-How-to-configure-your-beacons-for-Indoor-Location-

Also, have you updated the SDK to the latest version? We’ve just released an update that brings significant improvements to location accuracy and, what’s equally important, stability: http://blog.estimote.com/post/118294444205/super-simple-and-accurate-indoor-positioning-with. If you’re starting to notice more instability while using the app, it might mean there is some problem with iPhone’s compass: please try moving to the closes beacon and waiting a couple of seconds so the software can ‘reconstruct’ the proper position.

Cheers.