Phunware [NASDAQ: PHUN]
Introducing High-Precision Indoor Positioning Solution

When Mr. Johnson and his wife finally arrived at a bayside resort in California, he realized that the place had changed considerably since their first visit to the place, 25 years ago. While the resort has grown in structure considerably, the once humble resort is now teeming with all the luxury modern facilities one can imagine. With winding staircases to different hallways, and those hallways leading to different entertainment areas and suites, the resort was nothing short of a maze. To find their way around the gargantuan resort, Mr. Johnson thought of asking for a floor map of the resort from the concierge desk. Instead of an age-old resort floor guide with confusing marking, the concierge installed resort’s branded mobile app on Mr. Johnson’s iPad, which would act as a digital concierge and help Mr. Johnson to steer through the entire resort with indoor navigation, allowing him to make reservations at different entertainment facilities of the resort.

The experience of Mr. Johnson is not an isolated one. As the wind of digitalization blows over different sectors, many healthcare facilities, airports, and luxury resorts are now offering indoor navigation apps to improve their customers’ experience. Indoor positioning helps customers to helm their way through large architectural structures. Among a multitude of indoor navigation solution providers, one company that is raising the bar high with its high precision indoor positioning capability is Phunware [NASDAQ: PHUN].

In an interview with CIO Applications, Alan S. Knitowski, the co-founder and CEO of Phunware, offers insight into how his company brings a world of difference to the indoor positioning space with the help of branded mobile apps.

Phunware lies at the junction where gamification meets indoor navigation. Can you take us through the journey of your company?

At its core, Phunware develops fully-integrated enterprise cloud platforms. Luan Dang and I co-founded the company little over 10 years back. The whole genesis of Phunware was based on the idea of creating a gamification experience for every human being with a mobile device connected to a network. We wanted to build an entire platform, where businesses can engage, manage, and monetize their mobile application audiences across iOS and Android devices like smartphones, tablets, wearables, smart television, in-car infotainment systems, and other digital signage.

For the past decade, the platform has delivered robust mobile solutions for Fortune 1000 companies, offering impeccable expertise in mobile lifecycle development and management across verticals including healthcare, retail, residential, corporate campuses, hospitality, media and entertainment, aviation, advocacy, and more.

As we evolved in the integrated enterprise mobile applications space, we realized that the precision of indoor navigation becomes central to the one-to-one interactions between brands and consumers worldwide. Unlike outdoor navigation where GPS can easily guide a user from one point to another, it is different when it comes to indoor facilities like large airports, healthcare centers or luxury resorts. It is far more complex to pinpoint the position of an object inside a building than outside with GPS since you are dealing with technology limitations as well as a Z-axis to account for multiple floors. To address the limitations of indoor positioning, we patented “Mobile Device Localization Based on Relative Received Signal Strength Indicators” early this year to offer the functionality to our clients on their branded mobile app.

Can you please shed some light on how relative received signal strength help in indoor positioning? How does it add value to your clients’ mobile app?

At Phunware, we have developed a proprietary method of collecting data from virtual and physical beacons, high- and low-density Wi-Fi connections, and mobile device sensors, and integrating that data with a comprehensive machine-learning algorithm. These varied inputs help in determining a device position and location, irrespective of whether the device is active or inactive. The result is a high precision “blue dot” positioning and navigation experience for the mobile application user, which is similar to industry-standard GPS mapping, navigation, wayfinding, and geofence solutions.

Additionally, we feed the user data and behavior in the machine-learning algorithm so that clients can use that data to send targeted ads or offer loyalty programs to its patrons. At the same time, we want consumers to be incentivized for sharing identity and information. Thus, we have added a blockchain-enabled data exchange (PhunCoin) and mobile loyalty ecosystem (Phun Token) to compensate our users in return for brand engagement.

For example, if an airport wants to engage flyers with in-app navigation, we collect the user behavior data from the indoor positioning solution and the airport can study any causality between user behavior and their location within the compound. Further, they can later use the information to send targeted offers to flyers or possibly work with airlines to reward flyers for showing up on time to ensure an on-time departure (i.e. something brands refer to as “profitable behavior”).

In the wake of Phunware’s innovative indoor positioning solution, how does the future roadmap look like for the company?

We are excited to solve a complex, individual engagement problem for sub-one-second indoor interactions and position updates on mobile for our multiscreen-as-a-Service (MaaS) clients and their consumers. Our team already has a decade of experience and excellence in delivering best-in-class location results on mobile. We intend to continue pushing this envelope to ensure that our machine learning algorithms and capabilities continue to set new industry benchmarks worldwide. Continuing in the same path, Phunware will expand the capabilities of its MaaS platform by adding our blockchain-enabled ecosystem powered by PhunCoin and Phun, which businesses can use to drive customer satisfaction and revenue.