How Can Visitors Be Better Distributed in Terms Of
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CASE CARDS HOW CAN VISITORS BE BETTER DISTRIBUTED IN TERMS OF TIMING AND LOCATION? Locatify Who Locatify, IS What Ultra-wideband technology (UWB) Where Borgarnes, Iceland When ongoing Description Locatify is an Icelandic software company that offers storytelling and gamification solutions through mobile apps and location-based technologies. Among Locatify’s offers there are treasure hunt games and tour guide apps, white-label/custom enterprise apps, indoor positioning systems and a Content Management System (CMS) allowing clients to manage their own app content. Locatify was founded by Steinunn-Anna Gunnlaugsdóttir and Leifur Björn Björnsson in 2009 and since then it has delivered more than 100 mobile apps and enabled more than 20,000 projects in 30 countries. Locatify’s headquarters are located in Iceland with a sales office in Amsterdam. Two major Locatify offers to museums and other cultural institutions are audio guides and experience-based apps. Both are tailored to deliver unique visitor experience through AR technologies, gamification, storytelling and other ways of engaging the visitor but it can also be used for data collection and visitor flow control. Locatify’s solutions include Firebase analytics: demographic reporting (who the users are, their age, gender, etc.) and location-based data (user behaviour in terms of dwell time, peak-time flow, zone-based visibility). In their turn, visitor distribution challenges can be tackled through indoor positioning and way-finding options offered by Locatify. A technology which comprises everything aforementioned and which popularity is spreading in the museum realm is the ultra-wideband technology (UWB). Museums and UWB Locatify’s blog reveals the advantages of UWB technology usage in museums. UWB helps museums to get a deeper understanding of how visitors interact with their space. UWB location data and heat-maps can show and help to analyse visitor routes, dead zones and dwell time across different times and dates. This real-time location-data provides: − A clearer understanding of a certain artwork’s popularity allowing museums to plan the exhibition space more effectively and to disperse crowds to less busy areas; − Effective management of crowds by identifying busy areas and encouraging visitors (via digital signage or notifications) to move to other areas in the event of overcrowding. UWB's usage in museums has major benefits in terms of speed and quality of content conveyance. It delivers audio, visual or AR content quickly and effectively and can provide a new level of immersive augmented experiences. While beacons are sufficient where no high level of accuracy is required, UWB’s technology is optimal for venues with exhibits placed closely together or where a quick transition of content is highly important. However, museums’ employment of UWB is currently dependent on a special hardware – an audio device provided to visitors upon arrival. In venues where guests download an audio guide app to their own phone, beacons are preferable as they do not need any extra hardware to enjoy the audio guide. UWB’s application in museums: − the “blue dot experience” (showing user/asset location) To achieve the blue dot experience (a map in which a person’s or an object’s location is presented with a moving blue dot) the museum needs to accurately know the user’s location. Locatify reveals that with beacons this is done via “trilateration”. This means strategic and a time-consuming installation of many beacons to accurately cover a large space so the user/asset is positioned within six square metres and three beacons at all times. Moreover, this highly depends on the Bluetooth refresh rate of the device. Instead, the blue dot experience can be achieved in a much simpler way with a UWB infrastructure. This requires four to five anchors attached in the corners of the room providing an accurate positioning in an open space of up to 625m2. With this, UWB ensures a much simpler and quicker installation and superior accuracy. − indoor way-finding UWB can ensure indoor way-finding since it has the capacity to penetrate soft walls. Many walls could require multiple anchors to be used throughout the building resulting in a costly installation. However, if hyper precision is not required, one or two anchors in each room could provide acceptable accuracy. According to Locatify, “key factors to consider are: will the user have access to a mobile device and UWB tag? Is it viable to offer this hardware at reception? How often does the turn-by-turn navigation routes need to be updated? How many anchors would be required to ensure a smooth navigation experience?”. UWB VS iBeacons The UWB infrastructure requires: − anchors to be installed in the corners of the venue; − a small battery powered tag which has to be attached to every user to measure the location. The tag sends a signal to the anchor antennas which process the signal and calculate the position within 20 cm accuracy. The smartphone can read the calculated position over the Wi-Fi network with location updates up to every 50 m/second. Locatify explains, that UWB installations are far easier to be installed and are more predictable than iBeacon setups. In its turn, “iBeacon hardware is inexpensive, but installation and maintenance can be a complex process. Beacons are battery-powered and attached to objects, walls and ceilings and broadcast a signal which the smartphone detects and estimates the distance between the two. The distance estimate is quite inaccurate and varies depending on the physical environmental and distance. Smartphones are a bit slow to react to beacon signals as it can take them between 3 to 6 seconds to detect a beacon in range.” UWB and Data Collection UWB does not specifically aggregate any additional data except general demographics and location. However, the location-data could be cross- referenced against other data to give a better understanding of visitor journeys and the impact of external factors against museum visitor activity. Another beneficial use of UWB when combined with additional sensor data could be related to understanding the connection between the use of a space and things like oxygen levels, temperature, building maintenance requirements, etc. According to Locatify, the data collection is rather a side effect of the experiences that the UWB can enable. And although data aggregation is not usually the key driver of UWB adoption by museums, clients are becoming more aware of it, and there is an increase in interest for UWB for this purpose. The most common and important consideration for museums in regard to data at this point is to ensure they are being GDPR compliant. An important part of GDPR compliance is data anonymisation so this is important to notice when tracking visitor journeys, both inside and outside the walls of the museums. Technology Locatify explains in detail the UWB’s operation nuances: “The current systems require a hardware infrastructure including network connected UWB anchors and a UWB tracking tag (with a battery). The tag sends UWB signals which are picked up by the anchors and a handy algorithm (Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA) or Time of Arrival (TOA)) determines the tag’s position which can then be communicated to other systems. With UWB, it is possible to measure the time it takes the signal to travel from transmitter to receiver in order to calculate the distance in centimetres. This approach provides much better distance information than determining distance based on signal strength with iBeacons. The apps can receive precise location data (less than 20 cm deviation) and location updates can be delivered every 100 milliseconds (ms) if necessary. A user will carry a small UWB tag to monitor their exact location. The tag is equipped with a UWB transmitter which sends out a ping signal via UWB for every location update. This is also equipped with an acceleration-meter which will keep it at rest if it is not moving.” Ultra-Wideband Installations UWB technology overview unveils the process of installation: “The tag can be attached to the headphone, to the device itself or to the user’s body via a lanyard or a wristband. The extra tag is necessary because the majority of smartphones do not have any UWB hardware yet. UWB Anchors are installed on the venue’s walls in fixed locations up to 25 meters apart. They can be between 2.5 and 5m meters above floor level and have to be at least 15 cm away from the wall or ceiling. The anchors can be powered via USB or PoE (Power Over Ethernet). For example, a 10000 mAh USB battery can power the anchor for around 50 to 60 hours. At least 4 anchors are needed for a 25×25 meters space. The anchors synchronise their internal clock via Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi and then listen for pings from the UWB tags. Once synchronized, they record the time when the signal was received and pass it to a backend “Real Time Location Server” (RTLS). The RTLS calculates the tag’s position based on time difference of signal arrival at the anchors (TDoA). The RTLS apps subscribe to location updates from the RTLS backend service using standard web sockets or RESTful APIs to read the location data of a tag. The RTLS has also other features like recording location data and presenting reports like heat-maps.” Future The UWB usage is certainly beneficial in terms of navigation, analytics and experience, but it requires a certain infrastructure in museums as visitor need tracking tags to show their location. However, some phones already have Bluetooth chips which ensure location tracking (Apple U1 chip). The new Apple-designed U1 chip uses Ultra-Wideband technology for spatial awareness allowing iPhone 11Pro to precisely locate other U1-equipped Apple devices.