
Show HN: Indoor positioning for robots and AGVs using UWB beacons - jimiasty
http://blog.estimote.com/post/164744113385/estimote-launching-precise-indoor-positioning-for
======
Animats
The terms on this are very restrictive. They allow Estimote to screw you over
later. They could raise the service charge on your existing system, turn off
your beacons, and prevent you from using devices that don't pay them with
their beacons[1]. You're not even allowed to try to improve on the accuracy of
the location info they let you have.

 _Customer shall not, and shall not permit others to:_

 _\- use the SDK for any purpose other than for the Purpose set forth in Sub-
section 5(a) of this Agreement;_

 _\- reproduce, in whole or in part, the Software Development Kit; except as
expressly provided in Sub-section 5(a) with respect to the Sample Code,
modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise
attempt (y) to defeat, avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate or otherwise
circumvent any software protection mechanisms in the Software Development Kit
or the Beacons or components thereof, including without limitation any such
mechanism used to restrict or control the functionality of the SDK or the
Beacons, or (z) to derive the source code or the underlying ideas, algorithms,
structure or organization from the SDK or the Beacons or components thereof;_

 _\- except as expressly provided in Sub-section 5(a) with respect to the
Sample Code, alter, adapt, modify or translate the SDK in any way for any
purpose, including without limitation error correction ..._

All your robots are belong to us.

These are terms for an ad-oriented system, which is what they really do. The
system is intended for collecting data on customers. ("Harrods, the world-
famous department store now has indoor navigation in more than 330
departments, thanks to Estimote Beacons. A system has been installed in order
to 'assist shoppers to find a particular brand'.") Those are not suitable
terms for the system that runs your warehouse robots.

[1] [https://estimote.com/legal/terms-of-
sale.html](https://estimote.com/legal/terms-of-sale.html)

~~~
jimiasty
John,

our beacons are commercially deployed in many verticals. SDK together with
Cloud does allow some provisioning and security mechanisms.

Since beacons broadcast public Bluetooth signals we don't want any app/device
to know their location in a venue that is not provisioned for the application.

For example you don't want AliBaba mobile app to know you are in Best Buy,
next to console games.

That's why we do have optional encryption mechanism and our ToS prohibits
reverse engineering our SDK.

Our customer have access via APIs to almost all raw data, so if they want to
improve accuracy for their application they can do it.

------
jimiasty
Hi Hacker News,

this is Jakub, co-founder of Estimote, Inc.

Earlier this year we have added additional UWB radio to our BLE beacons. We
did that mostly for floor-plan auto-mapping (read more here:
[http://blog.estimote.com/post/154460651570/estimote-
beacons-...](http://blog.estimote.com/post/154460651570/estimote-beacons-with-
uwb-can-now-automatically))

Many people asked us if it is possible for robots/drones/AGVs to connect to
UWB beacons and get few-inches precision location positioning, so we have
decided to release a ROS package.

You can install it on your Raspberry PI, connect to UWB beacons and start
locating your robot/device.

We are around - let us know if you have any questions?

------
jnwatson
I tried doing something similar. I rigged an array of Bluetooth receivers to a
Raspberry Pi inside a large cabinet, and then attached inexpensive beacons to
liquor bottles. The idea was to be able to quickly locate individual bottles.

The project failed because the drivers or devices don't provide enough
precision (1 dBm might represent several inches).

With room mapping, you can use round trip time, which is a bit more reliable.

~~~
jimiasty
Please note our Location Beacons with UWB have two radios: \- Bluetooth (BLE)
that is low-power and can give few meters positioning accuracy \- Ultra-wide-
band (UWB) that's not low-power, but can give inch-precision.

This Robot Operating System (ROS) SDK does use both radios. We use BLE and
Bluetooth mesh to power UWB that are nearby to preserve energy of the system.

