Size does matter - positioning on the wrist a comparative study: SmartWatch vs. SmartPhone

Abstract

Indoor Positioning is a crucial topic to provide autonomous services to people based on their location. Nowadays dominating positioning systems, like GPS (Global Positioning System), are designed for outdoor use not applicable for indoor scenarios as they depend on a direct line of sight to reference stations. Recent progress in wearable computing peaked in the promising development of SmartWatches. They are seen as a successor of the SmartPhone evoking a new era of an always on, large scale, planet spanning, body sensor network. This work investigates in the question if SmartWatches are an accurate and suitable approach for an out of the lab, 24/7, real world Indoor Positioning System. In utilising Wi-Fi fingerprinting methodologies in combination with machine learning techniques, it is shown that state of the art consumer hardware in form of SmartWatches can be used to shape a cost effective, unobtrusive, and accurate indoor positioning system.