Your smartphone makes it easy to locate any restaurant in the heart of downtown, but it’s not much help getting you through a crowded airport. That is unless you’re travelling through London’s Gatwick Airport.
Spot the Dot
Recently, Gatwick Airport installed around 2,000 beacons in two terminals, creating an indoor navigation system more reliable than traditional GPS. This beacon-based positioning system, built on Bluetooth® technology, is the world’s first for an airport.
The system uses Pointr Labs’ blue-dot positioning service to provide an augmented reality tool that guides you through the airport. By following the path overlaid in the camera view of your mobile device, you can easily find check-in areas, departure gates, baggage claim, and more.
The Foundation for Future Benefits
Gatwick Airport’s beacon-based system is just the beginning. Moving forward, it will allow airlines and airport retailers to create added benefits, including real-time gate change and departure delay notifications, as well as promotional messages for nearby passengers.
“We’re opening the door for…new real-time services that can help passengers find their way around the airport, avoid missing flights, or receive timely offers that might save them money,” said Abhi Chacko, Head of IT Commercial & Innovation, Gatwick Airport.
What About Privacy?
As with any sharing technology, user privacy and the protection of personal data is always a concern. Gatwick says that no personal data will be collected, but that using generic information on traveler densities in different beacon zones may help improve airport operations. This includes fast queue measurement, streamlining passenger flows, and reducing overall airport congestion.
Simple to Install, Easy to Maintain
Beyond the benefits to passengers, Gatwick Airport’s beacon-based system is a low-cost option for indoor navigation. By using battery-powered beacons, Gatwick minimized logistical complexity while keeping installation and maintenance costs low. Plus, they got the entire system up and running in just three weeks and only needed two months for testing and calibration. This makes beacons a smart solution for optimizing air travel.
If you’d like to learn more about Bluetooth® beacon technology, or to learn how to integrate it into your products or apps, be sure to check out our two beacon developer kits.
FEATURED DOWNLOAD
Enhancing Bluetooth Location Services with Direction Finding
A new Bluetooth direction finding feature allows devices to determine the direction of a Bluetooth signal, thereby enabling the development of Bluetooth proximity solutions that can understand device direction as well as Bluetooth positioning systems that can achieve down to centimeter-level location accuracy.
How Alps Alpine Uses Bluetooth Technology for Secure Digital Key Solutions
The Bluetooth® location services market experienced a delay in growth last year due to…
How Location-based Services Can Improve Healthcare Facilities Around The World
This article from Quuppa explores the potential impact of adopting location tracking technologies in…
Achieving Room-Level Medical Device Tracking Using Bluetooth Low Energy Solutions
For healthcare providers, improving quality of care, reducing costs, and increasing patient satisfaction are…
WiFi Or Bluetooth Beacons For Indoor Location?
We weigh the pros and cons of WiFi & Beacon technology for location-based services,…
Another Bluetooth Application on the Road to Mainstream in Automotive
Many car owners think of automotive wireless connectivity as a simple interaction with their…
How Bluetooth LE Is Improving Bricks-And-Mortar Retail For Consumers And Stores
Bluetooth LE solutions are already increasing convenience and creating value for retailers and consumers…
Bluetooth Beacons: Everything You Need To Know.
Here at Pointr, we specialise in working with Bluetooth® technologies and we find that…
Building Better Asset Trackers For Monitoring Fragile Shipments
Bluetooth LE can be used to report on the condition of fragile cargoes, while…
How Bluetooth Technology Helps Aeon Motor Build a Comprehensive Internet of Vehicles Service
Taiwan’s scooter density is the highest in the world. However, the incidence rate of…
Sub-metre accuracy claimed for indoor Bluetooth positioning kits
U-blox is claiming sub-metre indoor accuracy with development kits for Bluetooth direction-finding and positioning.
Luminaire Level Lighting Controls and the Future of Healthy Buildings
As we build back from the pandemic, the building industry is rethinking how we…
Bluetooth® Technology and the Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic
Millions of people have installed smartphone applications which are designed to notify users if…
SmartShepherd Improves Scalability For Their Smart Farming IoT Applications With Cassia’s Bluetooth Gateways
Learn how SmartShepherd partnered with Cassia Networks to enable real-time tracking and monitoring of…
Secure and Accurate Distance Bounding for Bluetooth Secure Access
Are you involved in the design and development of products that rely on secure…
High Accuracy Distance Measurement (HADM) Demo For Keyless Entry Systems
In this technology demo Lambda:4 shows their phase based ranging with a standard Bluetooth…
Bluetooth shipments to reach six billion by 2025
Annual shipments of Bluetooth-enabled devices are set to top six billion by 2025, according…
Bluetooth® Technology: The Swiss Army Knife of Low-Power Wireless Technologies
Since its inception, Bluetooth® technology has undergone many enhancements and changes that have allowed…
Evolution vs. Revolution: The Building Blocks of Automotive Body Electronics
In the past few generations of automobiles, there have been significant advancements in vehicle…
2021 Bluetooth Market Update
Supported by updated forecasts from ABI Research and insights from several other analyst firms, the Bluetooth Market Update highlights the latest Bluetooth trends and forecasts.
Back to normality
Chuck Sabin, senior director of market development at Bluetooth SIG, explains how Bluetooth Technology…
How Bluetooth® Technology is Enabling Safe Return Strategies in a COVID-19 Era
This report shares insight into how Bluetooth® technology is being leveraged by organizations of all sizes to…
POM Tracer Ensures Workplace Safety with Contact Tracing Solutions from Laird Connectivity
POM Tracer was looking to create an easy-to-implement product that would allow businesses and…
Dyer Engineering Installs Location Tracking to Manage Workflows at Sites
Dyer Engineering is an innovative group of fabrication and machining businesses with wide-ranging capabilities…
2020 Bluetooth Market Update
Supported by updated forecasts from ABI Research and insights from several other analyst firms, the Bluetooth Market Update highlights the latest Bluetooth trends and forecasts.
Bluetooth Location Services
See 8 use cases for enhancing building efficiencies and creating a better visitor experience, discover new data that supports the latest trends and forecasts, and find out what’s driving the rapid adoption of location services solutions.
Lighting as a Platform
See how connected lighting systems are being used as a platform to enable advanced building services like wayfinding, asset tracking, and space utilization to improve the ROI of smart building investments.
Build a Smarter Building with Blue
See how Bluetooth increases reliability, reduces costs, and enhances your smart building ROI.
An Introduction to Bluetooth Beacons
Learn how to build your own Bluetooth beacon or integrate beacon technology into your existing products and apps.