[Updated July 2022 and January 2026]
Indoor positioning opens up a whole new world of possibilities for businesses, from improving wayfinding and operational efficiency to enabling data-driven decisions about how indoor spaces are used. At the same time, indoor positioning is a complex field: technologies, operating systems, and user expectations continue to evolve. In this article, we aim to provide you with an overview of the possibilities with indoor positioning systems (IPS) and outline the different technologies available.
What is Indoor Positioning?
It is hard to imagine a world without GPS. Most of us rely on GPS every day to find our way outdoors. The satellite-based positioning systems provide us with an accurate position outdoors, and we use this technology in many aspects of our day-to-day lives. However, GPS loses its benefits as soon as we enter buildings as it relies on very weak signals from satellites which are blocked by walls, ceilings, and other building structures. That’s why we need other technologies for the all-important indoor positioning and the desired 'blue dot'. Indoor positioning systems is the umbrella term for different technologies, which use mobile devices to position people's physical location within a building. Once you have set up an IPS, you can benefit from location-based services (LBS) such as sending push notifications based on your user's indoor location.
What is Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) used for?
Indoor positioning is no longer just about navigation. Today, IPS supports both user-facing experiences and operational use cases across many industries. Here are just a few examples of the range of applications and benefits of IPS:
Dynamic turn-by-turn routing
With an indoor positioning system combined with an indoor map of your facility, venues can provide users with real time turn by turn routing. Hospitals can reduce the patient stress by showing them the way to where they need to be. And at the supermarket, customers can experience a personalised shopping experience with a route through the supermarket based on their shopping list. At the airport, travellers will have more time to spend in the tax free area, if they always have the accurate route including travel time at the palm of their hands. The possibilities are endless with real time indoor navigation. Offices, campuses, and public buildings can support visitors who are unfamiliar with the space.
Location-based advertising and messaging
When you know, where your customers are in your store, shopping mall, or airport, you have the option of sending them location based offers directly to their smartphone based on their location. If they are passing by the pasta aisle in the supermarket, they might want to know about the pesto on offer. Or if they are walking past your coffee shop on their way to the gate, you can offer them a discount coupon for a latte on the go. Today, privacy, transparency, and user consent are essential considerations when implementing these services.
Insights into people flow and space usage
With an indoor positioning system you can gain useful insights into how people move around your facility. You might want to know how staff navigate around your hospital to ensure that they always use the fastest routes. Or perhaps you want to base stand pricing on actual statistics on how many visitors pass by certain areas at your convention centre. With LBS you can optimize the layout of indoor spaces based on actual people flow measurements. These insights can support decisions about layout optimization, staffing, signage, and long-term space planning.
Improvement of work efficiency
In environments such as hospitals, warehouses, factories, and large offices, indoor positioning can improve efficiency by helping staff find rooms, equipment, or assets more quickly. IPS is increasingly used as part of broader operational systems rather than as a standalone technology.
Which Indoor Positioning Technologies are available?
There are a range of different technologies out there which all cater to different needs, applications, and budgets. There is no single technology that works best in all buildings and for all use cases. In practice, modern IPS solutions often combine multiple signals and data sources to deliver a stable and reliable position.
Bluetooth Low Engery (BLE) Beacons
Indoor positioning using BLE beacons is amongst the most widely used indoor positioning technologies on the market today. Beacons are inexpensive, long-life battery driven radio transmitters, which send out signals in a radius of 10-30 meters and use Bluetooth to position the user. Depending on building characteristics, beacon density, and calibration, BLE can support meter-level accuracy. BLE beacons are relatively affordable and flexible, but large deployments require planning and ongoing maintenance, such as battery replacement. Today, beacons are often used as part of a hybrid setup rather than as the sole positioning technology.
WiFi
Indoor positioning based on WiFi signals use the so-called fingerprinting method, where WiFi signals are measured and based on their strength, the user’s position is calculated. One of the advantages of this technology is, that wifi access points are often readily available within buildings, which minimizes the need for further installations. Accuracy is generally lower than BLE and is best suited for presence detection, zone-level analytics, and people flow analysis rather than precise turn-by-turn navigation. Modern enterprise WiFi platforms can provide location data from the network side, reducing dependency on continuous scanning on the mobile device, as more and more devices have system limitations that prevent continuous WiFi scanning to conserve battery. This means that in practise Apple iPhones cannot use this approach, as well as some Android devices.
Ultra-Wideband (UWB)
Ultra-Wideband has emerged as a leading technology for high-accuracy indoor positioning. UWB can deliver location accuracy down to tens of centimeters and is increasingly supported by smartphones, wearables, and dedicated tags. UWB is well suited for use cases that require very high precision, such as asset tracking, staff safety, and industrial workflows. Compared to BLE, UWB typically requires more specialized hardware and higher investment, and is therefore often deployed selectively in critical areas.
Geomagnetic positioning technology
This type of positioning uses the Earth’s magnetic fields, which interact with steel and other materials found in building structures. Through the built-in magnetic sensors (the compass) in smartphones, the geomagnetic positioning technology can detect a user’s position within a building. IndoorAtlas are the leading providers of Geomagnetic positioning technology. This method is often combined with Bluetooth beacons to ensure a good user experience and correct floor detection. In practice, geomagnetic data is often used as a complementary signal rather than a standalone solution. Changes to the building environment can affect accuracy, so this approach is typically combined with other technologies to improve robustness.
Enterprise WiFi networks
Some enterprise networks are able to calculate approximate location for connected devices and can support use cases like indoor wayfinding and locating assets. The advantage of this lies in having a single infrastructure that supports multiple use cases (data connectivity + location services). Because accuracy is typically at room or zone level, this type of positioning is often combined with other technologies to improve the end-user experience. MapsIndoors works seamlessly with Cisco DNA Spaces.
Why hybrid positioning is the norm
Modern indoor positioning solutions rarely rely on a single technology. Instead, they combine multiple data sources such as BLE, WiFi, inertial sensors in smartphones, map data, and routing logic.
This hybrid approach improves reliability, reduces the impact of signal fluctuations, and makes it possible to adapt the solution to different building types and use cases. For most organizations, the quality and stability of the user experience matter more than the underlying technology itself.
Which Indoor Positioning System is the best?
Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question as use cases differ and new technologies are emerging. The best indoor positioning system depends on a range of factors such as:
- Building type and size
- Requirements (what do you want to get out of your IPS?)
- Desired accuracy and use cases
- Existing infrastructure
- Privacy and operating system constraints
- Budget
Choosing the right solution often involves balancing precision, scalability, and total cost of ownership rather than focusing on a single technology.
How do you install an Indoor Positioning System?
As previously mentioned, the complexity and scope of the installation of indoor positioning systems depends entirely on the technology itself, your requirements and any current technology setup at your venue.
What is the future for Indoor Positioning?
In the world of technology it is always dangerous to make predictions but one thing is for sure: Indoor positioning systems are here to stay and the potential for large offices, retailers, airports, hospitals, universities and many other venues is huge.
Indoor positioning has moved from experimentation to real-world adoption, and the future of IPS lies in deeper integration with digital twins, analytics platforms, and operational systems, as well as continued improvements in accuracy and reliability.
As expectations for seamless indoor experiences grow, indoor positioning will remain a key enabler for making buildings more intuitive, efficient, and user-friendly.
Originally published in 2017. Updated in 2022 and 2026 to reflect current technologies and market developments.
April 7, 2017
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