The new 2.8 SDK has just one new feature:

Keep computing user’s position while connectivity to the positioning cloud is disconnected.

First Things First

One might think that there’s hardly anything new here. Several indoor positioning SDKs have been built offline-first!? And this is true. Many of our competitors do offer offline positioning and they always have. But IndoorAtlas chose the opposite approach: we first built the online version. All the positioning logic has up until today been performed in the cloud. The reason for this is that finding the right models and algorithms for indoor positioning is actually quite complicated. Over the past couple of years we have applied numerous updates and tweaks to our service and done so without interrupting the service or asking our customers to update the client code. We even decided to rewrite the whole positioning logic for SDK 2.3 and later migrated all our customers to this new version, all under the hoods. We could not have reached this state without the quick development cycle that the cloud development offers.

Now that we don’t find ourselves making constant changes to this logic anymore and both we, and our customers, are happy with the core performance, it’s time to move the logic to the client device to maximise it’s true potential!

On Road to Offline Positioning

Our roadmap to full offline computing contains three major steps and this, SDK 2.8, is the first of the three. While the positioning can already continue without connectivity, this version still uses cloud computing whenever possible. You might also notice that the accuracy drops while disconnected. This is due to the fact that we do not yet use the geomagnetic information on the client side.

The next step, scheduled to be released early this fall, will be even more independent of the network and we’ll optimise it’s offline performance – even without using the geomagnetic just yet.

And finally, in the third step, we will add the magic ingredient; the client-side geomagnetic positioning! If everything goes as well as thus far, we could give you a version to test before the end of this year!

Backwards Compatibility

If you already have an application running our SDK, we have good news for you. SDK 2.8 requires no code changes and we aim to deliver the rest of the offline phases with zero or minimal effect to your code.

Get Started

To find out how to get started today with the IndoorAtlas SDK 2.8 Beta, read our SDK 2.8 Release Notes. 

 

Best,
Jukka Raanamo
SVP Product Management