New Now were awarded innovation funding to work with the Computing Science Department in the University of Glasgow, to develop an indoor navigation app prototype. Bluetooth beacons were installed around the department and their locations mapped on floorplans of the departments. A graph of possible routes around the building was created, and a directory of rooms and their occupants cross-referenced with the floorplans.

A cross-platform app was then built using Ionic, incorporating all of this information and able to detect the presence of bluetooth beacons. An algorithm was developed to derive a user’s location given a range of bluetooth signals and thus show their position on the floorplans integrated with the app. Users were able to search for people or rooms, and see a route from their current location to their destination.

The app was tested with groups of students and the data collected from its usage analysed to identify the ways in which users interacted with the app, suggesting how it might be developed and improved going forward.

User feedback was overwhelmingly positive, giving concrete evidence that indoor navigation could find many uses in future.