GPS works brilliantly outdoors, but the moment you step inside a building it becomes unreliable. For warehouses, hospitals, retail spaces, airports, and offices, you need a purpose-built indoor positioning system. The three main contenders are WiFi, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Ultra-Wideband, and each suits a very different kind of project.
WiFi positioning
This is the option that tends to make the most practical sense for a lot of organisations, largely because the infrastructure is already there. WiFi positioning uses the access points you have already installed and determines device locations based on signal strength measurements.
The accuracy sits around 3 to 5 metres, which is not going to tell you which shelf someone is standing in front of, but it is more than enough for wayfinding, floor-level tracking, space utilisation analytics, and understanding foot traffic patterns. The big advantage is cost: you are not deploying anything new, and it works with any WiFi-enabled device including smartphones, so there is nothing extra for people to carry.
The trade-off is precision. If you need to know exactly where a piece of equipment is within a room, WiFi alone probably will not get you there. But for the majority of commercial applications, that level of accuracy is not necessary.
WiFind, our indoor positioning brand within the Group, focuses on WiFi-based positioning for exactly this reason. Most clients do not need sub-metre accuracy. They need reliable, building-wide location intelligence that works with what they already have.
Bluetooth Low Energy
BLE takes a step up in accuracy, typically landing between 1 and 3 metres. It works by deploying small battery-powered beacons around a space and using either smartphones or dedicated receivers to pick up their signals.
The hardware is inexpensive and easy to install since you are essentially sticking small battery-powered pucks to walls or ceilings. Battery life on the beacons is generally 1 to 3 years depending on how often they broadcast. BLE is well supported by both iOS and Android, which makes it a natural fit for consumer-facing applications like museum guides or proximity-based notifications.
The downside is that you are building a new layer of infrastructure rather than leveraging something that already exists. BLE signals can also be absorbed by human bodies and affected by environmental factors, so accuracy can fluctuate in busy or cluttered spaces. For asset tracking in controlled environments or proximity-based triggers in retail, BLE works well. For building-wide coverage at scale, the beacon density required can start to feel excessive.
Ultra-Wideband
UWB is the precision option. Using short radio pulses and time-of-flight measurements, it can achieve accuracy below 30 centimetres in ideal conditions. It is also resistant to the multipath interference that causes problems for WiFi and BLE in reflective environments like warehouses.
The catch is cost and complexity. UWB requires dedicated anchor hardware mounted throughout the space, and each anchor covers a shorter range (10 to 50 metres) than WiFi or BLE equivalents. The tags are more expensive too, and they draw more power, so battery-powered UWB devices tend to last months rather than years.
Where UWB makes sense is in applications where centimetre-level accuracy genuinely matters: manufacturing lines where you need to track tools and work-in-progress precisely, robotic navigation, sports analytics, or safety-critical personnel tracking in hazardous environments. If you need to know roughly which zone someone is in, UWB is overkill. If you need to know exactly where a forklift is to within 20 centimetres, it is the only realistic option.
How they compare at a glance
| Factor | WiFi | BLE | UWB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accuracy | 3-5 m | 1-3 m | 10-30 cm |
| Infrastructure cost | Low (reuse existing) | Medium | High |
| Device cost | Low | Low | Medium |
| Battery life | N/A (device-dependent) | 1-3 years | Months |
| Best scale | Campus/building | Floor/zone | Room/area |
Mixing technologies
In practice, many deployments combine more than one of these. WiFi gives you building-wide coverage and general zone tracking, with BLE or UWB layered in for specific areas where higher precision is needed. A hospital might use WiFi throughout the campus for wayfinding and equipment tracking at a zone level, then deploy UWB in operating theatres where exact equipment positions matter.
We design these hybrid solutions fairly regularly. The key is matching the accuracy requirement to each area rather than over-specifying across the whole site and blowing the budget.
Planning an indoor positioning project? Our WiFind team can help you choose the right approach for your space.
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