Low accuracy and erratic movement

Indoor Location
1

I have a largely empty perfectly rectangular room (3.6m x 9.5m) with a beacon in the middle of each wall. I created a quick app for testing the accuracy of the beacons but I can’t seem to get any useable results from our setup. The reported location pops around the room nearly randomly and it never seems to settle on the actual location.

Here’s a screenshot of me using the app for about two minutes. During that time I never moved and held the device up to the nearest beacon. While the first location reported was somewhat near the actual location, it quickly started veering away, never to return):

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estimote_test.png750×1334 73.2 KB

Some additional info:

  • I ran the app on an iPhone 6 with iOS 9.3.2
  • I am using normal mode (not light).
  • I’ve tested our location with the Estimote Indoor Location app and had similar results to my own app.
  • Our first attempt used 8 beacons in the space but we downgraded to 4 Estimotes because the indoor location app.
  • I was unable to get a decent reading using the automated calibration so I’m doing the calibration manually.
  • All the beacons have been set to maximum frequency (100ms), maximum broadcast strength (4db) and have all power saving turned off.

Is the room just too small? If so what are the recommended minimum space requirements for indoor location?

Thanks in advance for any help.

2

Thanks for a very detailed post! That’s definitely far from expected results. Can you confirm that the beacons are affixed to the wall about chest-height, in a vertical position, with the little dot facing up?

3

Hey Piotr,

  • The beacons are vertical and pointing up.
  • They are about chest high. I’m 1.5m tall and they are collar-bone height on me, but the person who put them up is 1.8m tall and they are chest high on him :wink: I’m assuming this shouldn’t make a difference for our test anyway since the device was almost touching a beacon and never moved.