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Show HN: Indoor Location you can try yourself

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Re: Show HN: Indoor Location you can try yourself

#2
I'd love to know a little more about what's going on here. Does it use accelerometers or just wifi signals? One key question: could I share these floorplans? That is to say, using the sensors on HTC Android device #1, could I sent a floorplan to my friend Samsung device #2 and have them be able to similarly track their location?

Does it only work indoors, or is that just for demonstration?

Re: Show HN: Indoor Location you can try yourself

#5
post #2

I'd love to know a little more about what's going on here. Does it use accelerometers or just wifi signals? One key question: could I share these floorplans? That is to say, using the sensors on HTC Android device #1, could I sent a floorplan to my friend Samsung device #2 and have them be able to similarly track their location? Does it only work indoors, or is that just for demonstration?

The floorplans are definitely transferable! Once you’ve mapped a location once, it works automatically on all devices.

In fact, if you walk into a location that someone else has already mapped, the “Where Am I” will automatically load that map up on your device and start showing your position.

If you’d like to do more advanced stuff with your floorplans, make a WiFiSLAM SDK account here (access.wifislam.com) and we can get you started.

Re: Show HN: Indoor Location you can try yourself

#8
post #2

I'd love to know a little more about what's going on here. Does it use accelerometers or just wifi signals? One key question: could I share these floorplans? That is to say, using the sensors on HTC Android device #1, could I sent a floorplan to my friend Samsung device #2 and have them be able to similarly track their location? Does it only work indoors, or is that just for demonstration?

@untog: It's actually a sensor fusion approach that combines both accelerometers and Wi-Fi signals.

Re: Show HN: Indoor Location you can try yourself

#9
post #2

I'd love to know a little more about what's going on here. Does it use accelerometers or just wifi signals? One key question: could I share these floorplans? That is to say, using the sensors on HTC Android device #1, could I sent a floorplan to my friend Samsung device #2 and have them be able to similarly track their location? Does it only work indoors, or is that just for demonstration?

It will work wherever there are ambient WiFi signals, indoors or outdoors. This is particularly interesting indoors because it’s possible to get GPS outdoors, while you can’t indoors. We have tried mapping around Mountain View and it’s worked great

Re: Show HN: Indoor Location you can try yourself

#10
Constructive criticism: After reading the description, I don't understand what this application does. I am not initmately familiar with indoor mapping/positioning or WiFiSLAM. The term "indoor mapping showcase" is vague to me.

I think it lets me build maps of indoor locations? Somehow? Based on the screenshots, maybe by walking around my room? It seems like it could be neat, but I don't want to go through the trouble of downloading an app if I don't know what it does.

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