1. Indoor Navigation
Innovative solutions such as Bluetooth indoor navigation and wayfinding can not only help ensure public health and safety during the epidemic, but also play other roles in the post-epidemic era. In addition to monitoring and helping employees avoid crowded areas to achieve social distance compliance, Bluetooth pathfinding can help overcome the problem of GPS indoor coverage and provide guidance for employees and visitors in complex facilities.
Pointr's deep positioning platform is a wayfinding application. Facility managers can use the route planning and navigation functions of this system and other similar systems to guide visitors in the venue. The system can create personalized routes for visitors, such as navigating to find their car, going to an appointment or their favorite store. This technology can even confirm which floor you are in a building, which is not possible with GPS.
However, this is just one example of Bluetooth technology being used to optimize the indoor experience. Other use cases include:·
a. Share indoor location with colleagues, friends or family. ·
b. Deliver food to your specific location in the building. ·
c. Search for real-time, executable information about products, stores, and services. ·
d. Provide assistance to visitors with visual impairments and mobility impairments.
2.Asset Tracking
Asset tracking is another compelling use case for Bluetooth location service solutions. Whether it is determining the location of tools and workers in warehouses, or determining the location of medical equipment and patients in hospitals, Bluetooth technology is driving the rapid development of RTLS solutions for tracking assets and personnel.
According to the report "How Bluetooth Technology Achieves a Safe Resumption of Work Strategy in the Era of the Epidemic", "As more and more companies realize and recognize the benefits of RTLS to the supply chain, many suppliers are more inclined to more typical asset tracking applications. There is growing interest. The epidemic has made people put the improvement of the production process in the first place in future process planning. The extensive impact of RTLS on the business has made more and more people realize that the value provided by the RTLS solution is not limited to a simple location. data."
Many facilities have added asset tracking capabilities to their IoT infrastructure to help combat the spread of the new crown epidemic through better personnel and activity tracking. This data allows building managers to understand which rooms are used most frequently, so that they can prioritize cleaning resources and help reduce the risk of infection.
Through these asset tracking solutions, facility managers can use location-based service platforms to gain insights into the flow of people in specific areas. Retail establishments use this data to formulate smart leasing strategies; hospitals and airports can respond to real-time occupancy data to ensure the best allocation of resources. Hospitals can also use asset tracking to determine the real-time location of medical equipment, trolleys, wheelchairs and other equipment to ensure that visitors or patients can use these equipment when needed. In addition, with the popularity of Bluetooth technology in smartphones, location analysis solutions can also be quickly built and run in large venues to facilitate venues to check the density of visitors in specific areas and ensure efficient space allocation.
3.Zero-touch access and control (Contactless Access and Control)
According to reports, the new COVID-19 virus can survive on various surfaces for up to 72 hours, and this number is still changing with our further understanding. Door handles, keyboards, door surfaces, light switches, and other potentially high-frequency cross-contact areas may increase the risk of infection. Therefore, the deployment of Bluetooth access solutions in various enterprise and hotel environments will increase, such as door locks that can be unlocked through Bluetooth work permits and smart phone access control systems that can minimize such risks.
These solutions can also be used for broader RTLS deployment and epidemic response, such as avoiding the appearance of large gatherings and limiting the flow of people in buildings. Based on these use cases, ABI Research predicts that by 2026, the annual shipments of Bluetooth access control card readers and field control panels are expected to increase significantly to nearly 16 million, considering that there are currently less than 250,000 such systems in use. In other words, the compound annual growth rate between 2021 and 2026 will reach 102%.
The advantages of non-contact access control are not limited to the period of the epidemic. Youngji Kim, market research project manager of the Bluetooth Technology Alliance, said that geofencing locked/unlocked by smartphones is also one of the main Bluetooth access control use cases: "Industrial parks can use mobile phones to identify personnel and restrict personnel from entering dangerous areas. "
To ensure safety, industrial facilities such as warehouses, factory workshops, and chemical plants need to prohibit employees without relevant training from entering hazardous areas. These facilities will greatly benefit from Bluetooth access control solutions. When an employee or visitor wanders or enters near a dangerous area, the facility manager will receive an alert to further protect everyone's safety. In the event of an emergency, if first responders can know their specific location in the facility, they can locate and find the trapped persons in the facility more quickly.