Positioning
Do you need beacons for indoor wayfinding?
Short answerNot for good directions. A kiosk knows where it stands, so every route starts there and moves to the visitor’s phone by QR code, with no beacons and no app. You need beacons, or another positioning provider, only for a dot that moves on the phone as people walk, and that brings a site survey, upkeep and, on iPhone, a native app.
Three ways to know where the visitor is
Every route needs a start point. Indoors, GPS does not help much, so a wayfinding system gets the start point in one of three ways.
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1 Kiosk origin
The route starts where the kiosk stands. Its position and facing are set once, when it is installed.
No beacons
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2 QR hand-off
The visitor scans the kiosk screen. Their phone opens the same route in its browser, still starting at the kiosk.
No beacons, no app
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3 Phone blue dot
The phone estimates its own position from beacon or Wi-Fi signals. The circle is the uncertainty.
Beacons or a provider, a survey, an app on iPhone
The first two need nothing installed beyond the kiosk. They also cover a very common case in a hospital, mall or airport: someone walks in, stops at a screen near the entrance and asks for one place. The third is the “blue dot” that people know from outdoor maps, and it is where beacons come in.
The answer depends on what visitors need to do
Write down what you want visitors to be able to do before you price any hardware. Most of the list needs no positioning at all.
| What you want | Beacons needed? | What it takes instead |
|---|---|---|
| Directions from a kiosk | No | The kiosk’s position and facing, recorded once at installation |
| The same route on the visitor’s phone | No | A QR code on the kiosk screen; the phone opens the route in its browser |
| A route started on the phone, away from a kiosk | No | The visitor picks a nearby place as the start |
| A dot that moves as they walk, on Android | Yes, or another provider | Beacons or Wi-Fi round-trip-time access points, plus a survey |
| A dot that moves as they walk, on iPhone | Yes, plus a native app | An app with a positioning SDK. Browsers on iPhone cannot read beacons |
| Re-routing the moment someone takes a wrong turn | Yes | A live position the system trusts |
If the first three rows cover your visitors, you can start without beacons and decide about a blue dot later, with real search and route statistics in hand.
What decides accuracy
Accuracy is a property of the installation, not the product. The same beacons give different results in a glass atrium, a concrete car park and a corridor lined with steel shelving. The figures below come from the published sources linked in the table, and none of them is a promise for your building.
| Method | What it needs | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Kiosk origin | Nothing beyond the kiosk | Exact by definition: the start point is where the kiosk stands |
| Bluetooth beacons, signal strength | Beacons every 10 to 15 m, at least four in range | “Meter level” accuracy, per a Rohde & Schwarz application note. A 2021 study in Sensors measured about 10 cm with beacons and scanners on one plane, dropping to metre scale in three-dimensional tests |
| Wi-Fi round-trip time (802.11mc) | Compatible access points and phones | Android’s target is 2 m at the 90th percentile on 80 MHz channels, 4 m on 40 MHz and 8 m on 20 MHz, per the Android Open Source Project |
| Phone GPS | A view of the sky | Built for outdoors. DigiMaps uses it only on georeferenced campuses, after the visitor taps locate-me |
Two practical points follow. First, a wayfinding system should refuse to show turn-by-turn guidance from a weak fix. In DigiMaps, the dot only drives directions when it is matched to the map, on a known floor and reports 3 m or better (2 m in the hospital profile); otherwise the screen says positioning is unavailable. Second, ask every vendor where their accuracy figure was measured, because a number from a test lab tells you little about your basement corridors.
What beacons cost to buy, place and keep
The hardware is cheap per unit. The work around it is not, and it repeats every time the building changes.
- Floor
- 96 m × 60 m, 5,760 m²
- Spacing
- 12 m, inside the 10 to 15 m Esri recommends for typical offices
- This floor
- About 40 beacons
- Four floors like it
- About 160 beacons, each with a battery and a recorded position
- Mounting
- 3 to 4 m above the floor, at the same height throughout
| Line in the budget | What to expect | Source, checked 24 October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware and a starter licence | Kits of 10 BLE beacons, a three-month navigation licence and a white-label app list at USD 1,500 and USD 1,600, depending on the beacon make | Navigine store |
| Spacing and mounting | About 10 to 15 m apart, 3 to 4 m above the floor, with at least four beacons in range for reliable positioning | Esri ArcGIS IPS documentation |
| Batteries | The beacons in a second kit are listed at “8+ years” on a replaceable cell, with no transmit setting stated. Faster, stronger signals drain batteries sooner | Navigine store |
| Survey | Someone walks the venue recording signals and test points, floor by floor, and again after refits | Ask the installer to quote it as its own line |
| Upkeep | Esri tells customers to plan for occasional maintenance of the beacon network. In practice: flat batteries, beacons moved during building works, new partitions | Esri documentation, as above |
For a first budget, count the beacons from floor area, add the survey days, and ask the installer how often they expect to re-survey. The answer to that last question is usually what decides whether a blue dot is worth it.
The iPhone problem
A web page on an iPhone cannot read Bluetooth beacons. Safari on iOS does not support the Web Bluetooth API, and caniuse lists no iOS version that does (checked 24 October 2026). A browser-based blue dot from beacons therefore works on Android Chrome only.
For iPhone users, a blue dot needs a native app that includes a positioning SDK. If your venue already has an app, that may be the right home for it. DigiMaps native SDKs are on our roadmap rather than available today. If you already have beacons or a positioning SDK, DigiMaps accepts external position feeds through a documented API, so your own app can drive the dot on our map.
None of this affects kiosks or QR hand-off. A visitor who scans the kiosk’s QR code on an iPhone gets the same route, language and step-free choice in the browser, starting from the kiosk.
How to run a positioning pilot
If the statistics show that people need a moving dot, pilot it in one zone before committing a whole building.
- Start with kiosks and QR hand-off. Run them for a few weeks and look at what visitors search for and where routes are abandoned.
- Pick one zone where a dot would change something, such as a long outpatient corridor or a car park level, and agree what success means in metres before anything is installed.
- Survey and install in that zone only, with beacon positions recorded on the map.
- Measure against ground truth. In DigiMaps, a venue on the universal profile cannot publish a release until there is a measured positioning record: 100 ground-truth points, the right floor 99% of the time, 95% of fixes within 2 m, two phone models, renewed every 180 days. That is a release gate in our software, not a result; no site has passed it yet.
- Decide with the numbers. If the zone passes, extend it. If not, you still have working kiosk and phone directions.
This is why we sell phone positioning as a commissioned pilot. Start with kiosk “You are here” and QR hand-off today, then add phone positioning as a pilot: we survey your venue and report the accuracy measured on site. For the full picture, read how indoor positioning works in DigiMaps, or see the kiosk software and QR hand-off that works without any of it.
Related questions
How accurate is indoor positioning with Bluetooth beacons?
It depends on how many beacons are in range, the building materials and the phone. One 2021 study in the journal Sensors measured about 10 cm with beacons and receivers on the same level in a quiet room, and metre-scale errors in three-dimensional tests. Ask any vendor for accuracy measured on your own site, with the number of test points and the phone models used.
Can we use the beacons or positioning system we already have?
Often, yes. DigiMaps accepts position fixes from an external positioning SDK or native app through a documented API (a JavaScript call, a postMessage or a DOM event). Fixes are snapped to the walking routes within 8 m and expire after 15 seconds, so a stale position never drives directions.
Does a blue dot work on iPhone in the web browser?
Not with Bluetooth beacons. Safari on iPhone does not support Web Bluetooth, so a web page cannot read beacon signals there. A blue dot on iPhone needs a native app with its own positioning SDK. DigiMaps native SDKs are on our roadmap.
What does a beacon deployment cost?
The hardware is the smallest part. One public example is a vendor kit of 10 beacons with a three-month licence listed at USD 1,500 on 24 October 2026. Budget as well for the survey, mounting at height, battery replacement and a re-survey after refits, and ask for those as separate lines in the quote.
Do kiosks need any positioning hardware to give directions?
No. The kiosk’s position and facing direction are recorded once when it is installed, so the start point is exact by definition. The visitor can then take the route to their phone by scanning a QR code on the kiosk screen.