Forum feed for Nokia Kamppi trial

Discussion: Nokia Kamppi trial archived from Beta Labs by markow76

markow76 — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:21:09 +0000

http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/2009/12/21/kamppi-trial-archived-from-beta-labs

John - Community Facilitator @ Beta Labs

Review: A Trial in the End of October by tony_ysy

tony_ysy — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:15:56 +0000

First of all, I would like to dedicate a special thanks to the Nokia Research Center (NRC) people, they prepared 3 Nokia S60 devices for us to get things done, and obviously I can never write a review here before their given help at first. I have some test results from my guys who went to Helsinki and performed the Kamppi Trial. There are total of three of them to help for the trial test. Well, things are working fine at Kamppi, and yup, results are observed and I found things are pretty cool for such an experimental trial. :-) Yeah, the indoor WLAN positioning is working fine and above average, and really hope to see this experimental project can be pushed to beta phase, and we know that it is all hard work that keep the thing works, so I just give this a try by giving some valueble comments and keep this trial in good shape before it is archived (Ooops, cross my fingers. :X). Basically features are kept in simple way, it comes with search and result retrieval, and of course location detection is working fine, it is able to highlight a 'heat' at a particular shop on the map where we are located. The map size is ok, just nice to be fit on a small mobile screen. SMS to locate friend is cool and working fine And here are some issues we were having: 1. Have to manually reload the page each and every time when moving from one place to another. 2. Sometimes if the map is reloaded, different map is loaded, ex. when I was in level 4, the level 5 map is shown. This may not be the issue from your side, but from the maintenance team on the access points. 3. Shop locations are not matched to the shop locations shown at http://www.kamppi.fi/uk/Shopping_Guide.aspx. (Is the kamppi.fi shopping guide outdated?) Well, these are all I can give, all these are based on the results and some screen shots they have given on the spot. Have a good weekend!

Comment: Someone at Nokia can tell when will be available for developers by sergiosmail for Suggestion: API or other way to get it working elsewhere?

sergiosmail — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:50:48 +0000

As Symbian (C++) developer I want to know if Nokia have intention to port this APIs to S60 library? Some info? sergiosmail

Comment: I am glad to volunteer to by tony_ysy for Suggestion: API or other way to get it working elsewhere?

tony_ysy — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:11:55 +0000

I am glad to volunteer to test the application. Please let me know if the technology is available for further testing. I'll try to fund myself to setup a small scale WLAN. I think just 3 access points (WRT54GL) will do. UPDATE (2009-09-11 11:42): Well, I have contacted with Christian Prehofer regarding an indoor positioning trial at Kamppi Shopping Complex. Some of my guys are confirmed will go all the way from Penang, Malaysia to Helsinki, Finland next month! All procedures, trial documents and test devices are in planning phase. Let's hope all goes well. :) UPDATE: The last wireless router has finally arrived yesterday to make trilateration or triangulation. Originally I have a Belkin 54g (seems unhackable). Later I have WRT54GL (hackable, of course). Lastly Netgear DG834G (hackable) is up now. These are ready to be setup at my home. Hmmm, planning, planning and planning. I still don't have a proper Nokia phone, so by using my laptop as a substitute will do, I guess. What is necessary now is a site survey, and later an application called Magic Map (heck, I don't understand German Language) will be used. Hope to get some ideas from my setup.

Comment: Good suggestion, I wiil like by iovechkin for Suggestion: Notification for not being in Kamppi

iovechkin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:19:59 +0000

Good suggestion, I wiil like this, --------------------- my game: nokia snake

Comment: We're working on by jkyro for Suggestion: API or other way to get it working elsewhere?

jkyro — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 08:15:54 +0000

We're working on transferring the technology further within the company, stay tuned!

Suggestion: API or other way to get it working elsewhere? by dsample

dsample — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:45:04 +0000

I'm glad this has gone further than the internal pilot I saw a couple of years ago. One thing that is concerning me though is that this is only for Kamppi, and the audience for Beta Labs is global. I'd love to get this working for the office I'm in and even eventually my home (which has multiple APs dotted around). When is there going to be a way to take this and use it elsewhere than Kamppi? I'm expecting it to be a combination of background 'map' image and XML to describe the different locations of APs and shapes of areas

Review: Functionality by Phinrich

Phinrich — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:48:22 +0000

Hi and congratulations on a ground-breaking application. I do feel that the day will soon come when such applications will be quite common and very usefull. I am not in Finland so cannot experience the app in the mall itself. Pity as I would like to experience the location aspect using WLAN. I give some personal criticisms below but please do not think that I am just knocking your app. My criticisms are given from my vantage point of not being able to experience the app within the mall itsef, and are given in the interest of honest dialogue aimed at possibly improving the app in cases where you may agree with me. I do find that the fonts and diagrammes are very small and difficult to read on my pc screen and even more difficult to read on my mobile. Especially the maps themselves. And if you think that usually inside a mall the lighting is sometimes dimmer it may be almost impossible to view the app. I would have also liked to experience the navigation aspect of the app (i.e. being in the mall and needing to navigate to a particular store) so I cant comment on this aspect. However I am wondering how the app assists with navigation in a multi-level mall. I am sure that it does but the difficulty with navigating in a multi-level mall is showing both the users current location and intended destination on the screen at the same time. Since if we use the usual block diagrames then we need to show two block diagrams on the same page and we cant overlap them since the top one will hide the bottom one. Does the app somehow assist the shopper with navigation within the mall ? One aspect concerning navigation is the orientation of the mobile within the mall. If you think about how your cars gps works, the graphic onscreen has to line-up correcly with the road. Then if the car turns a corner the graphic must re-align itself. It is the same within a mall. If we have a map of the mall onscreen then that graphic has to align correctly with the mall otherwise it may be useless. Then if the user turns a corner the graphic must re-align itself. Does the Kamppi app use the WLAN location detection to achieve this ? Also I see that the app is on a webpage and accessed by the user on their mobile web browser. This may work in countries having good web services but in my country internet connections are often slow and cumbersome and it would take a while to open the map. I do like the idea that you can scan to see if any friends are in the mall and even text them an invitation to join you. If you are wondering what qualifies me to make the above comments let me say that I have spent some time now developing a map of a shopping mall for a mobile phone. This doesnt make me an expert but in what I say above I share with you my own experiences in building the app. My app is completely contained on the mobile and doesnt require any web access although I think some web access can only improve the app with regard to adding certain features. No my app does not at this stage permit automatic location of the user but I have built the app so that such auto location can easily be added later. I built my app to imitate the gps systems found on motorcars allthough until I can add automatic location detection it will not completely imitate a motorcar gps.Currently it uses a form of manual location detection. My app allows the user to see both their current location and intended destination on the same graphic which is sharp, large and clear. There are also aspects which help the user to navigate from A to B. It shows all toilets, stores, bank machines, information desks and elevators and escalators. Keep up the good work and I sincerely hope that you will receive many reviews of your app and eventually have a great working app for indoor navigation. As for me I am going to investigate ways to add automatic location detection and take it from there. Paul

Discussion: Kamppi trial and facebook - how does that work by m4rkus

m4rkus — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 11:57:43 +0000

I tried the Kamppi indoor positioninn app. It was actually pretty nice. All the maps and location stuff worked ok. However in the download page there was a mention that you can share your location with your facebook friends. Does anyone have any ideas how that works? I could only find the send location as SMS option. I could not even find any place for my fb credentials.

Suggestion: Notification for not being in Kamppi by jovilen

jovilen — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:38:36 +0000

It would be nice, as you run the application outside kamppi, for the application to inform you, "You are not located in Kamppi. This application works only in Kamppi Shopping centre, Helsinki, Finland." This could be based on AGPS, GPS, not finding Kamppi LAN coverage etc. At the moment the application tries to locate you in Kamppi forever, if not really in there.

Comment: Now i understand. Google by shoeib for Discussion: Is it only available in Finland?!!

shoeib — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:54:13 +0000

Now i understand. Google maps detects ur location approximately using ip. Just like many websites for ur pc. But kamppi uses signal strength i think to measure the distance to the AP. Nokia N82 (FW 20.0.062)

Comment: Not necessarily that expensive by m4rkus for Discussion: Is it only available in Finland?!!

m4rkus — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:04:16 +0000

I think the main difference here is that the trial includes actual indoor maps for each floor. So, you can see where your nearest McDonalds, GAP etc is. And you can see in which floor and wing your friends are in. I think this is truly new stuff in the consumer space. As for the cost I think many shopping malls have WiFi infra already inbuilt so the additional investment to cover the blind spots isn't most like likely big. Even if you needed to install 10 or even a hundred additional routers they still only cost like 50EUR each (+ installation).

Comment: This kind of service relies by Sandymc for Discussion: Is it only available in Finland?!!

Sandymc — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:33:51 +0000

This kind of service relies on heavy investment of wifi router i guess. If google location uses LBS signal triangulation, this one uses wireless LAN triangulation.

Comment: Wireless LAN Triangulation by Sandymc for Discussion: How does this work?

Sandymc — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:29:27 +0000

Yes, it is indeed very interesting project. What i've found is indoor positioning uses wireless LAN triangulation by signal strength. So by having 3 or more wifi coverage, the device can 'predict' current location. More signals coverage will definetly increase its accuracy.. What i wonder is how many wireless router kamppi has invested to get this run..

Comment: It's not that it's only available in Finland by mbrett for Discussion: Is it only available in Finland?!!

mbrett — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:55:59 +0000

It's not that it's only available in Finland. It's actually only available in the Kamppi Shopping Center in Helsinki in Finland to be axact. I assume what you are refering to is: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-location-now-with-wi-fi.html Looks like we're trying to keep up with Apple and the iPhone again. http://www.skyhookwireless.com/inaction/index.php mbrett N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

Discussion: Is it only available in Finland?!! by shoeib

shoeib — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:44:26 +0000

errrr... Isnt it the same thing that google maps does using IP? well as it looks to be availabe only in finland ppl outside cant try it.;) Nokia N82 (FW 20.0.062)

Comment: See the blog. by mbrett for Discussion: How does this work?

mbrett — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:09:22 +0000

Christian Prehofer, the Project Leader wrote the following in the blog: "The new application uses existing wireless LAN networks in the building to determine your position in the building." http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/2009/06/04/introducing-nokia-kamppi-trial-experimental-indoor-positioning-service-in-helsinki-f mbrett N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

Discussion: How does this work? by tommylux

tommylux — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:20:12 +0000

I like the idea; good for airports and shopping centre. I wonder how it knows where you are inside a building?