Reality matters

At Estimote, we’ve built our first beacon before iBeacon was announced. And then, as soon as Apple showed iBeacon to the world, we were the first to integrate with it, leveraging the superior iBeacon stack that Apple built directly into iOS. Thanks to that integration, developers building with Estimote gained access to features like always-on background monitoring, or ability to relaunch their app from a killed state due to a beacon event.

Then, in 2014, we launched our Indoor Location SDK, taking even more advantage of iOS APIs: Core Bluetooth and the sensors APIs. Developers now had access not only to proximity to beacons, but to a precise (x,y) indoor position.

Today, we’re further advancing our integration with the iOS stack by adding ARKit to the mix. Our Indoor SDK can now leverage Apple’s breakthrough image-processing and sensor fusion, to strengthen its own indoor positioning algorithms. The result of that integration is an inch-level indoor positioning precision.

Indoor Location takes ARKit to the next level

ARKit is new technology from Apple added in iOS 11, making it super easy for developers to build Augmented Reality experiences, and blend the physical and digital worlds on an iPhone screen. Never before could you look at the physical world through your phone and see it populated with creatures from games and fantasy movies. Or see what your apartment would look like, fully furnished, without buying a single piece of furniture. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

When developing for augmented reality, you could encounter a few problems. Your phone doesn’t really know where it is. Is it a conference room or a lobby in your office? It doesn’t even know if this is the same place you last ran the app. Because of that, it’s hard for ARKit to place objects in the same spot every time you run the app, or show the same object in the same place for two different users.

Indoor Location delivers the context of the physical world to the phone, whether it’s in the lobby or the conference room, solving both the problem of session sharing as well as session persistence. If you place a 3D castle next to your chair, it will still be there the next time you run the app. What’s more, Indoor Location provides the option to have a back-end for AR. Because the device and your CMS can now speak the same language, you can remotely store and manage where the objects should be.

Try it now!

All you need to try it out is a single dev kit of Location Beacons with UWB to map your location, and an iOS device compatible with ARKit, such as an iPhone 6s or newer (for the iPad family: an iPad Pro or iPad 2017) with iOS 11 installed. Download the Estimote Indoor Location app, map your space, and enjoy the most precise positioning on the market!

Thrilled to write your own app?

We’ve prepared a fast track for you! A ready-to-go, but easy-to-expand example is bundled within our SDK. All you need to do is put in your credentials and location identifier, and you’re all set!

Happy hacking!