Better result in Google map using beacons in Indoor search

Question

Would it be possible make Google maps aware of our beacons via their registry or api or something, so that google map can accurately give indoor direction to users in a facility that is under our control(where we can deploy beacons)?

Example: In a mall we own, can we place beacons and submit them to Google Maps so it can give better results?

Some links I found, but can't figure out an answer:

• https://developers.google.com/beacons/
• https://developers.google.com/beacons/proximity/guides
• https://www.google.co.in/maps/about/partners/indoormaps/
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.insight.surveyor

Loveland

Answer 1

Google used to develop this beacon-based location service call Google Here but it was scrapped due to the reasons of privacy, but then you can do the following to get your beacons locationing up.


Let say you have multiple beacons in one mall.To make this explanation simple, just treat the indoor maps and normal maps as the same thing, and those beacons you going to add are like the places in the Google Maps.

First of all you need to make your building floor plan available on the Google Maps. You can do so by using the following steps to submit your beacons location with the floor maps of the building, so that your beacons location can be automatically align with your stores/building. https://support.google.com/maps/answer/2803784?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

After your floor plans appear on Google Maps, you can submit your beacons location using the Map Marker tool (Retired March 2017, moved to Google Maps after that). You can then use the Google Maps API's Map Object to work with your indoor map, including getting location of all your beacons. https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android-api/map#indoor_maps

The IndoorBuilding Object allows you to get the active level that you are accessing. You can use the function getLevels() to get all the levels in the building, and then use getActiveLevelIndex() to get active level you are working on.
After getting to the right floor, what is left is the interaction between Google Beacon API with the maps you created. latLng and indoorLevel in the Proximity Beacon API would then return the exact location and detail level that your beacons located.

Sporocyte

Thanks, this is what I was also planning to do. Your input made i really clear with all the steps. – Loveland

Hey, to you know any companies/shopping malls/stadiums or so using that already? – Whorehouse

Answer 2

You can use this link to upload indoor map of a building.

https://maps.google.com/floorplans/find

Submit the details of floor and everything.

Hope it will help.

Fatherhood

I am looking for connecting beacons to Google Maps API. Am aware of the Indoor maps api but I want a way to connect beacons for detecting location more accurately. – Loveland

Answer 3

I believe there are no current plans to use registered beacons for directions indoors, or even for lat/long type location (more for semantic place inference), but I feel it is a very good FR so I went ahead and added it to the Android issue tracker: Including support for BLE beacons in FusedLocationProvider. Please star it to get updates.

As you can read in the other reply beacons can be used currently to improve indoor location accuracy for 3rd party apps, but it requires a lot of work by the developer and it is not supported by the Google Maps Mobile.

Grower