Indoor navigation in the end rely on fly

Typhoon came, pigs can fly to heaven. The question is, who knows where is the next typhoon? One possible answer is: indoor navigation.

Imagine, one day, you and your friends go shopping like West Edmonton Mall (the largest shopping mall in the world), where you can shop in a few days, and quickly find the nearest cafe or restroom?

Of course, the most primitive way to ask for help, but the best solution is to download an indoor navigation map. It can pinpoint exactly where you are on the first floor, showing the names and discount information of the surrounding shops. If you are tired, you can also order a cup of coffee under the map, and hot coffee will be delivered to you within minutes.

This is not a daydream. Recently, the indoor navigation business wisdom map launched an indoor navigation "search deer" APP, can be used in 35 shopping malls in Beijing. Insiders said the indoor navigation into the outbreak.

Indoor navigation was accused of concept

In "Find a Deer," the conference, Wanda E-commerce CEO, now Circle (circle of retail and commercial real estate O2O platform) founder Gong Yitao said Wanda launched smart plan in 2013, now Wanda in the country 85 Home shopping center through the wisdom map, to achieve the indoor navigation.

"Wanda data analysis every year, before the statistical flow of people through the camera, but this data can not be further subdivided.Now the model, a cell phone is a person, Wanda know how many times a month, but also know According to data analysis, Wanda has also found the relevance of the store, know like ZRAR also like to shop, Wanda can arrange the location of the brand based on these data. "Gong Yi Tao believes that the future of indoor navigation will be the shopping center Standard.

However, some analysts think indoor navigation is just a concept hype. "Wanda has support for real estate, invest billions of dollars no problem, ordinary shopping malls, parking there so much financial support?" Analysys International Yan Xiao Jia believes that the concept of indoor navigation is only hype, it is impossible to form a large climate. "Just like the sign-in software of the year, it's a fake market."

Yan Xiaojia given the reason is that the technical threshold of indoor navigation is too high, and the resources invested too much, each mall is not the same environment, it is impossible to form a unified standard for nationwide promotion. At present, the signal in the shopping mall is not good enough, so indoor navigation needs new equipment, and this matter is enough to "die" indoor navigation company. "It is reported that the pre-investment of Wanda's" intelligent "project, almost every 100,000 square meters of investment costs at 200 Around

In this regard, wisdom map CEO Ouyang said indoor environment is very complicated, only use the wireless signal. And the amount of indoor map data is outdoor hundreds of times, outdoor map can be updated once every six months, while the indoor map will be updated every two weeks. In addition, the outdoor map with the floor plan can be, and in the indoor map are all three-dimensional network, to do three-dimensional navigation.

The industry believes that will usher in the outbreak

However, the Beijing News reporter interviewed a number of domestic and international indoor navigation personnel, all think that the bottleneck of the industry have spent, is ushering in the outbreak.

According to reports, there are currently 8,000 shopping centers in the country, of which there are about 800 cities in the north and the south. Domestic 8000 shopping malls, 20% of the shopping malls in the self-built signaling facilities, the remaining 80% of the shopping malls with operators do WiFi. In other words, WiFi coverage has reached 80%.

As for the funding issue, Zhang Yuan CEO Zhang Yang believes that indoor navigation is to do ToB business, the cost of shopping from the mall, and shopping centers are now willing to pay for it. The reason is that stores are strongly squeezed by e-commerce providers and they need to understand the behavior of consumers in stores and seek ways of digital operation. "This is a change in the mall itself, shopping ideas and ideas to follow the technological change, the industry has come to the eruption."

Ouyang believes that in the next few years, this industry can at least give birth to a "high-German level" enterprise.

AeroScout, a 12-year-old indoor location manager, said in an interview with the Beijing News reporter that in addition to the shopping mall, indoor positioning has a broader application market and the entire market is expected to see an outbreak in 2015. "It will start in some industries such as petroleum and petrochemicals, workers 'safety, or commercial and medical sectors because these industries have just what to do. The oil industry needs to ensure worker safety and stores need to position their customers' handheld terminals." The executive said .

Shopping malls and technology giants have a marriage

With the rise of Google, Goode, Baidu and other map services, outdoor GPS positioning and navigation into the mature market. Indoor positioning as the "last mile navigation" becomes the object of betting by the giant.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) statistics, people spend around 87% of their time indoors. This means that indoors navigating the cake is more generous than outdoor navigation. Now there are more shopping malls and technology giants to join this market.

In April this year, Intime announced the cooperation with Ali and in June Vanke announced the cooperation with Baidu. Based on big data and cloud computing technology, Baidu will provide intelligent upgrade solutions for Vanke commercial real estate. Its first smart real estate project, Vanke Plaza will be held in August this year, Changping, Beijing.

At the same time, international technology giants have long been in this area. In 2012, the global mobile industry giants Nokia, Samsung and Sony Mobile formed a "positioning alliance" in conjunction with 19 other companies. Apple also spared no effort in this regard. In 2013, it invested $ 20 million to acquire WiFiSLAM, an indoor position-fixing firm. In early 2014, the company announced iBeacon, a technology that performs precise micropositioning using Bluetooth Low Energy.

Beijing News reporter Lin Qiling intern Liu Mu