Intro to the Series & Pointr Labs COO Interview

Transcript

• Narration 00:06

  You're listening to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Beacosystem with Steve Statler.

  Steve Statler 00:23

  Our digital and physical worlds are colliding. And Bluetooth beacon technology is at the center of a change that's going to impact everyone's experience with mobile phones. The world of the web used to be separate from the physical world. But now thanks to beacons and a range of other location and proximity technologies, as well that converging Bluetooth beacons trigger actions in smartphone apps when the phone comes into proximity with these tiny devices, you things are like confetti around us. They allow app developers to understand where people are with a precision. That was impossible a few years ago. As apps become aware of our location, all the tools and techniques that Amazon uses to make their websites so successful, are going to be available to people that run brick and mortar retail stores, as well as to the operators of sports stadiums, hospitals and factories are what are these techniques, they include the analysis of people's clickstream path through websites. Only now we can measure people's footsteps through buildings, we can understand who went into a store, where they went in the store, and how long they dwelled in the aisles looking at a particular product. From that analysis experiences with staff holding tablets. And what we see on the digital displays in a store can be personalized, just like on Amazon. Lastly, that panted one click checkout from Amazon has a parallel in this world of digital to physical convergence. The no quick checkout where your presence and identity can be verified. So you don't need to use your wallet or your phone to pay. The person at the checkout will know who you are. And you'll simply be given what you want to pay for. My name is Steven Statler. And I just finished writing a book on this subject called 'Beacon Technologies: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Beacosystem'. I spent a year interviewing the entrepreneurs at the center of this revolution. And it was great fun. These people are fascinating. And they're working in startups and large companies all around the world. And they're doing amazing work. Now the book is complete, we have a survivor's guide for people that want to understand this space, and develop solutions that use the technology. But the ecosystem system is still changing and developing. The goal of this series of podcasts is to help all of us in the beacon ecosystem or Beacosystem. Keep up to date by talking with the leaders of the companies making these changes happen. Well engage with a bunch of companies you may not have heard of, and some companies like Google that you know really well. I'll be asking questions to understand what these companies are doing, what their customers are doing, and what they think is going to happen next. So join me on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Beacosystem. Welcome to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Beacosystem and the first in our series of interviews with people that are at the center of location and the proximity business. My name is Steve Statler, consultant at Statler Consulting and the lead author on 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Beacosystem' along with over a dozen other contributors. And what we want to do in this series is have in depth discussions with people who are working in really interesting companies at the center of the beacosystem. So today, we're actually in London, Old Street area just off of the Silicon Roundabout. And I'm with Chris Charles. Chris is with Pointr or Pointr Labs. He's the Chief Operating Officer, and we're here to talk a bit about what Pointr does. And we're going to also just get his views on what's happening in the beacosystem. So first of all, Chris, thanks so much for your time. I know that you're really busy. You're saying you've been up to like a small hours over the last few days.

  Chris Charles 04:59

  Yeah, we've had A couple of big things go live and some big tenders. So it's it's been busy the last couple days.

  Steve Statler 05:04

  Well, that's good. And actually one of the things I want to do is just laters. Talk a bit about where you see the market and how busy it is. But before we do that, can you just tell us a little bit about who Pointr Labs are what you do?

  Chris Charles 05:18

  So Pointr are a beacon experts. We do everything to do with positioning and data in indoor venues. So we start off with the Bluetooth beacons, which generates a position which we'll get down to the meter accuracy, we then layer on extra services, so that you can interact with people based on intelligence, you can help them navigate, you can maybe provide audio assistance for people who have visual impairment, you can help people search for products and search for each other. And then obviously, you're collecting data about everything that's going on. So we then help analyze that via heat maps be at dwell times be, what people are searching for, and where people are visiting.

  Steve Statler 06:00

  So if I own a venue, like an airport, or I'm a retailer, and I want a guide to the store, or the airport helps people find when they go find the product, then you would provide the widget that goes into their app.

  Chris Charles 06:15

  Yeah, so so we have we have an SDK that plugs in on iOS and Android, really easy to integrate with and have almost a couple of lines of code. And you can you can load a map with the full searchable database of products, you can interact with it, and you're collecting all of the analytics at the same time.

  Steve Statler 06:32

  So how much of this business is driven by people in developing apps that want to help people find stuff, and how much of it is driven by that analytics piece that you were talking about?

  Chris Charles 06:45

  It varies a bit depending on the client and the market. But what we tend to push for is a balance. I think, if you're not providing a useful feature to an app or to a user, then there's no motivation for that user to ever interact or download the app. At the same time, if there isn't any insightful data, then the venue driver is much less so. On a website, you collect everything about what pages someone what pages and products someone's looking at, and how long they're spending on those products. For retargeting, etc. In store, there isn't anything of the same. So you do need to get a balance of both.

  Steve Statler 07:27

  And one of the things that I mean, this is what you've just described as the one of the archetypal indoor location use cases, in a massive store, I can't find the product I want, you can get someone to the shelf, presumably to the shelf? Well, certainly the department probably the shelf to find what they're doing. But I have never, ever seen anyone do this. Do people actually do it? Or is it just because is it a chicken and egg thing? Technology has not been ready. So people don't do it? How? How many people are really using maps to find stuff in the menus?

  Chris Charles 08:01

  I think at the moment, it's done a lot with asking store stuff. And I think index stores it happens a lot more than you think I mean, one one store that we've got we're working with. They have 10s of people, sometimes hundreds of people to help navigate and help direct people to the right area. So there is a last efficiency point there, which obviously the app can help with, I think that people will start to use it more as well. I think I think you're right that people don't necessarily do it because it's never been possible. And now suddenly, you can I think people will adopt it quite quickly. I don't know how many times you've visited the local Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, whatever it is, and gone, I have no idea where this product is. And you maybe spend a minute walking around, then you spend a minute finding a member of staff and then the member of staff takes you there. Obviously, that would be a hell of a lot smoother, especially if it's a new store that you haven't visited before.

  Steve Statler 08:59

  Yeah, intellectually, that totally makes sense. And then I guess the our job as an ecosystem is to train people to trust us that people have to download the app. So can you point to any examples of kind of the leaders in this space where people are actually using that? Or is it just too early to point someone who's, who's cracked it?

  Chris Charles 09:22

  I don't think anyone has 100% cracked it yet. I think that the US is ahead of Europe at the moment. There are a couple of big projects that are going live in Europe very imminently. Some of our own. And I think that over the next few months, we'll really see it become getting publicity.

  Steve Statler 09:44

  Fantastic. Who's using your product?

  Chris Charles 09:49

  So we've got a range of people using our product in completely different markets. We've got a few several retail customers anything from big supermarkets through to And big department stores or oil chains of wholesalers, airports big is a big user of our products and transportation in general. So translations as well, we've got a few factories, it's a really very wide field. And every new customer that comes to us has a slightly different requirements or a slightly different take on what they want to do with the data or possibilities.

  Steve Statler 10:25

  I was like nodding, expecting pretty much the verticals you were talking about. But then you said factories, and I wasn't expecting that what's happening in factories?

  Chris Charles 10:35

  So I guess in the same way as understanding how someone is shopping, you can understand how people are working in a factory. And you could look at it as a 1984, big brother esque situation when you want to monitor exactly what someone's doing. But actually, you can look at it proactively and in a positive way, which is every member of staff in a factory, every worker as a set of tasks, they need to do on a shift, and they need to keep visiting machines that break down, etc. And at the moment, all the technologies out there are all focused on the machine monitoring downtime, but it doesn't necessarily focus on all the times when the employee has to interact with the machine or keep it running or maybe tweak a setting. Actually, by collecting data about how people are moving around factory, you can be a lot more intelligent about the maintenance of them.

  Steve Statler 11:26

  So the factory worker knows how to get around the factory, they're not actually looking at a map at all. But this is looking at productivity workforce management. And actually, I was talking to someone at company, whether it's Pepsi or Coke, but it was one of those massive brands. And they said that they were interested in it from a safety perspective, just making sure that people are in the right place.

  Chris Charles 11:47

  We've got a heat, we've got a few customers looking at it entirely from safety, or not even entirely, but from a safety perspective. And, and although it's, it's obviously not a 100% solution. It's not a it's not a in case of emergency, we can guarantee this person is here. But it's very good at saying, Okay, we've got a 99% confidence that this is the case, you only need someone to leave their beacon or leave their phone and then the company can becoming inaccurate, but it's definitely a big area of expansion.

  Steve Statler 12:20

  Well, that is the challenge, isn't it with with our technology in that you need a phone, which has got a smartphone. So not one of the old phones. Most people seem to have smartphones, Bluetooth needs to be turned on. Ideally, they've got an app installed. What are you seeing what? What are you seeing in terms of what's our what's the TAM that we can actually address that actually not the total of the song? The total addressable market? Is everyone with a smartphone? How many people what's the percentage that actually where we can tick the box and say, I guess the app is a huge variable. And that's really down to whoever is creating it happen, how good a job they do of creating value. But how many people have Bluetooth turned on? And likely to say yes, I don't mean my big track.

  Chris Charles 13:11

  I think there's a there's a few points there. Firstly, there's there's one part which is well, what can you do without an app. And we've got a number of products that you can use passively. So you can't identify and when you can't be personal. But you can collect you kind of visitor analytics to say, Well, we know there's this many people here. By listening to devices, you don't actually need a huge number of people in order to collect some pretty valuable insights. So you don't necessarily need to have 90% data of of your customers to be able to understand what's going on. Actually 30, 40 50%, even 5% can be hugely insightful. The only thing you need to be careful of is is there a difference between that 20% that I do have and the 80% that I don't have is one technical user a month and those and the others are non technical, then you've got a bit of a difference of like, okay, well, maybe I need to understand what the differences are between those users. Insofar as uptake of Bluetooth and smartphones and the kind of service for users. I said that's changing quite a lot. We've seen even over the last even over the last year or six months, huge uptake in in Bluetooth based devices, as everyone has more and more Bluetooth devices from headphones, Fitbits to Apple Watches, etc. People are finding more more than leaving Bluetooth on isn't isn't the end of the world. And with Bluetooth Smart so long as you're only using Bluetooth Smart then it really doesn't take up more than a percent of battery life.

  Steve Statler 14:41

  Makes sense. So let's talk a bit about the technology and the limits to what can be achieved with the technology as it is today. How accurate is accurate what how precise can you get and do people really care about that? Is that an issue when you get in there? It seems like like a kind of very such an obvious question, isn't it? You know, we want a lot of accuracy to people, what what's achievable? And then maybe we'll go and ask what actually people saying that they need, and what do they really need.

  Chris Charles 15:13

  So we get down to a point we get down to a meter accuracy, we find that that gives a massive insight as to what someone is interested in. If someone is that in a clothing department store, you could be looking on one side at handbags and the other side of shoes. And obviously, they're very different situations and very different retargeting options that you would have as a result of that. So there is a big benefit to having improved accuracy. And I do think there are a number of use cases where it's vital. When where's it going to go? How much accuracy do people want? We have people regularly contacting us to say, can you do 30 centimeter accuracy? Do we think it's ever gonna get there? Yes, sure, it will get there eventually, it will be quite a long time away, I think yet. And I do think that there are very few use cases where you will need that level of data. Just like there there are some use cases where you'd never meet need more than 10 meter accuracy. It's just a case of understanding what suits the situation and the users and the venue.

  Steve Statler 16:18

  So what's an example of a use case where you do need sub meter accuracy?

  Chris Charles 16:23

  That people wanting to do positioning of drones? So if you're flying a drone around and you're trying to get to land, then obviously it needs to be very accurate about where it is. There are there are people who want it for positioning as well. So for example, understanding where everything is in an office, understanding where users are, a meter might be fine, unless there's, there are people who have contacted us for all sorts of things that we never would have expected. And we're not very necessarily even bought into the idea. But it's amazing what people want the accuracy for.

  Steve Statler 16:59

  So it's part of your job to qualify your customers?

  Chris Charles 17:04

  I wouldn't have said we qualifying them. And I wouldn't have said that we're second guessing them. But we maybe would give them the information they need to assess what is the right level of complexity? Because as you get more accurate, you increase the complexity and maybe you increase battery drain, there are there are a set of factors that it's worth considering and understanding. Before before really just saying, no, we want this. And that's, that's I think, our main job to inform and advise.

  Steve Statler 17:37

  Battery drain on the phone or on the beacons?

  Chris Charles 17:41

  Both. So I mean, when you configure a beacon, you're configuring it with a set of settings. Depending on those settings, the battery drain will be different. Just like depending on the number of beacons, you're listening to depending on how intelligent you're being using those signals, the battery drain will be different on the phone. And the screen is obviously a big driver of that. So what you do in the background versus what you do in the foreground are quite big differences.

  Steve Statler 18:03

  And let's talk some numbers here, then how many beacons do I need to put in office like this to get meter accuracy that's good enough to navigate my way around and find a table and a meeting room and that sort of thing?

  Chris Charles 18:21

  We would typically say you need a beacon every 200 square meters. That's that's a general rule. Obviously, there are variations depending on how intricate the rooms are, how thick the walls are, and how high the ceilings are. There's there's tons of variables. And again, that's one of the things that we're finding more people asking us about installing installing beacons to do something more intelligent than just sending a push message when you arrive at the venue actually requires a bit more intelligence than just sticking them.

  Steve Statler 18:49

  And is that like a height thing? Do you have to worry about being too high or not high enough?

  Chris Charles 18:55

  Yes. So you want to be above head height, because then you get less in interference from people. But being too high makes the signal harder to differentiate. I won't go too much into details as far as rip, right. But there are definitely a set of bounds on what we'd say is the best position.

  Steve Statler 19:12

  And what about the process? How does it How does it work? If I've got an app and I include your API's, what happens to kind of make the mapping happen and who's involved?

  Chris Charles 19:26

  It's another one we've really varies. In some clients, we do everything we do, turning a cat floorplan into into a nice usable map, installing beacons, configuring them, setting it out, tweaking, testing, etc. We would do all that whole process. In others, it's either not achievable because they're international. It doesn't make sense for us to do it. Or perhaps there's 100 stores and they want to use their own workforce for it. So we have a number of options where we can be flexible be training their staff, and letting the letting the venue do either do the rollout but we we do the training, and ditto even for the simplistic smaller cases where we can pre configure the beacons put dots on the map of where the beacons need to go and send it off.

  Steve Statler 20:11

  And then is there like a fingerprinting process or survey is that an app required to take signals from the beacons?

  Chris Charles 20:20

  And so that's that's one of the powerful bits of our technology that you don't need to think of. So with WiFi with Bluetooth, obviously, you do fingerprinting in a number of cases, we design it so that it doesn't be fingerprinting, which is really powerful when the venues are changing. So if you're moving around your displays or what's on your shelves, that obviously can affect the fingerprint, and, and therefore require a lot of maintenance to keep up to date. Whereas our technology doesn't need that.

  Steve Statler 20:48

  So just so that people under it. So fingerprinting is a nice metaphoric term, but it's not 100% clear what it is. But that fingerprinting would be you've got an app, and it's measuring the signal from the beacons. And it's kind of taking account of, well, what is fingerprinting?

  Chris Charles 21:07

  Fingerprinting would be once you've installed the beacons, you then walk around the venue and collect the signal strengths in all the different parts of the venue. And that is a fingerprint of the venue. And then when you calculate a position you're matching, matching your location with that fingerprint. So it does require measuring the signal strength all around the venue, and sometimes quite regularly.

  Steve Statler 21:31

  And that changes based on people moving stuff around. And you don't need to do that. So well, that. So you got me thinking about competitive options, and so forth. So anyone that's going to sort of this, this video has been done in partnership with Proxy Work. And so this will appear, the video will appear on Proxy Work as well as The Hitchhiker's Guide site. And people will come to Proxy Work, and it's kind of a, I think it's a huge benefit to the companies that are on Proxy Work because it's a really large companies like Unilever that come there to figure out who to do business with. But the downside is they see all the other companies and it's like, you know, it's even though I think we've done a really the team there who've taken it over from me, I've done an amazing job of making it clear. The challenge, I think, in any industry, when you're making any buying decision is figuring out the difference between these products. So can you help me to differentiate what you do and don't do and maybe some competitive positioning to the mix. And no one likes to name names. But you know, I would have put you in the same category as in in indoors into RS over an extra minute or so or something like that. Can you help me differentiate what you do from what they do? I think that fingerprinting reference was maybe a reference to the indoors approach.

  Chris Charles 22:57

  Yeah. I'd say that some of our key strengths are one accuracy, to a kind of hand holding almost, where we're much more involved with the the installation and the process, so that we understand it more rather than saying, here is an SDK, integrate it work, do it, make it make it all happen yourself. Whereas we're much more happy to help and advise and customize. Because there are a number of things that it is worth customizing and anything around data processing privacy, etc. There's there's lots of points there. So the customization part is big flexibility as well. So it's really easy to add remove change features, I'd say that's that's a big part. It is difficult to kind of miss Pick, pick out exactly what the differentiators are. I would have said that we've got a more complete platform, everything from the actual installation process all the way through to actually drawing conclusions out of the data. And we've got a couple of guys who can help guide you girl who can help draw conclusions out of the data and generate some actionable points from it, as opposed to just saying this area is busier. And I think that that complete journey through from installation to integration through to using it with getting users to use it through to generating data through to processing it into a usable format through to actually making conclusions that that full journeys is quite important.

  Steve Statler 24:32

  I guess the challenge with it's probably very important to do the hand holding at this early stage in the industry. But the challenge then becomes scaling and so forth. How to tell us a little bit about the company, I guess. So how many people in the company? Where are you? It seems like you're a very cosmopolitan bunch with people all around the world.

  Chris Charles 24:54

  Yeah, we're pretty international. We've got we've got a UK, London Head Office, where we've got four people plus a few part timers who do everything from design, to marketing through to whatever. We've also then got our tech team based in Istanbul, we've got kind of almost 20 People now. We've got sales people around the world, in big venues in big locations with big venues. So be that Dubai, Canada, got one guy in the States, kind of all over really cool.

  Steve Statler 25:31

  And where are you seeing the most business? I mean, it's actually interesting. I was looking at Proxy Work before I came here. And I think there's London is about 14 proximity companies in the UK, and there's over the 30, September center Proxy Work companies is based in in the UK, where are you seeing the most business?

  Chris Charles 25:57

  It's hard, it's hard to say I'd say that, because we're a London based company, we definitely see and do more business in London. But we're definitely seeing stuff coming around the world. I guess it is all down to relationships, right. And getting information out there that helps differentiate helps explain helps understand how the technology could be used and applied to someone's situation. So whilst I think that the states is a more advanced location, I'd say that there's a lot of downsides of doing business in the States, from an international business mainly around all the process. And it becomes it becomes quite difficult making sure you meet all of the kind of IRS requirements and tax requirements and everything else. Yeah. So we're finding we're finding loads of business in Europe.

  Steve Statler 26:51

  So let's just finish off the the piece about what you do and don't do, I think you've done a great job of explaining that core of the product. It seems like, is it in the book, we talk about an orchestration layer, so I would kind of fit what you do and what we call an orchestration layer, which is kind of making sense of all of the noise from beacons and, and coordinating and providing useful actions that an app can can use. It seems like one of the things that you don't do is make beacons, which is unusual, it seems like everyone makes beacons, you don't.

  Chris Charles 27:30

  I think to make a good beacon, you need to have a lot of time and dedication. And it needs to go through a lot of testing. And I would have said that there are some great beacons out there already. Everybody beacon has its quirks and its intricacies and choosing the right beacon is another important factor. And that's somewhere where we would help advise customers. But we don't see making a deacon as our key market period, because there are enough out there there is enough choice. And whilst they could be improved, in some ways, that perfectly good enough for us.

  Steve Statler 28:06

  And what do you look for in what's the sign of a good beacon?

  Chris Charles 28:12

  I would say that there's there's a few points, there's reliability. So we want to have complete confidence that a beacon won't break won't unexpectedly die, and will last it's it's kind of intended shelf life, I would have said that being easy to configure is important. Being able to integrate with some of our configuration apps through an SDK. working offline is quite powerful for us quite important for us, a number of our sites, it's very difficult to get an internet connection. A lot of our technology is designed so that it works. And that's another one of our competitive advantages that works offline. You can get your position you can get your navigation, etc, offline. And being able to configure that is quite important. I would have said the battery life is a big consideration. Obviously, if you're if you've got an easy to maintain setup, then maybe changing the battery every 18 to 2436 months. Isn't isn't that much of a problem. But if you've got very difficult installation requirements than having a four or five year battery life is vital.

  Steve Statler 29:16

  And it seems my personal view of the beacon ecosystem is it's benefited from all this hardware, and it's kind of more competition is better. But my personal view is that there's gonna be a lot of people that are exiting the beacon manufacturer business or rebadging for some of the reasons that you talked about. It's kind of hard to do a really good beacon, especially with Eddystone. Standards improving, getting more comprehensive it the pressure will be really are. Who do you think, Who do you think the survivors are going to be in that space? I'm going to be we don't need a comprehensive list because we probably don't have enough time for a comprehensive list but.

  Chris Charles 29:59

  I think anyone who can provide a reliable, customizable beacon will do well, I think contacts are great beacon that it's very flexible, very easy to use. I think that there are much longer battery life ones. And that's that's possibly a weakness in the contact proposition. I think there are, I'm not going to name names, but there are definitely some some great new beacons coming on the market. So the panel beacons, USB beacons and quadruple a battery producible double A batteries, which, which obviously gives you a huge battery life. So I'd say that it will it will thin as a market. And we'll see we'll see the ones who succeed as probably the ones who managed to define that key differentiator. So creating a bog standard beacon with no with no customization or no special feature. Now, I think we'll be will struggle.

  Steve Statler 31:05

  So let's talk a bit about standards for for that layer for the beacon layer, because it's been an interesting few weeks. For over two years, we had iBeacon. And then it was a bunch of proprietary stuff. And now then Google came along with Eddie stone. And then it seems like they've just upped the ante in the last couple of weeks with Eddystone EID. And probably adds significantly, if not more significantly, standards around the management interface. So you can actually have a standard way of configuring beacons, which I think gives is going to unlock the shackles. What's your view on the way the standards are going to go? Do you think? Do you think people are going to keep on using iBeacon? What how do you think the battle between a Google and an apple standard is gonna play out?

  Chris Charles 31:59

  It's interesting. I mean, I'll see you wrote an article around Eddystone was probably middle late last year, were the robots day, and I've still not seen any real uses of Eddystone in large scale.

  Steve Statler 32:13

  And are you talking about Eddystone URL or Eddystone EID, which is essentially iBeacon.

  Chris Charles 32:18

  Yeah, it is essentially iBeacon, even even URL we've seen very few uses of it live. And I appreciate that is it takes time for people to take tests, adapt, customize and put live. But I do think that there's there's a there's a real problem in that area, which is the first the first mover advantage of iBeacon does a lot of things, right. And whilst it hasn't got everything, right, I'd say that for something else to take over has got to be significantly better. And at the moment, the testing that we've done, I don't see any stone completely taking over, I think there will always be iBeacon, a place for iBeacon in the market. But it's definitely interesting to see where it ends up and how people react to them to the new technologies over the last over the next couple of months. Especially as you say around the configuration of them.

  Steve Statler 33:13

  Yeah, so first mover advantage for Apple when iBeacon had that incredible integration with the operating system. So kind of railway gaps that were dead, bringing them back from the dead, which many other technologies can't do that might compete with beacons. But I think that one of the key things about Eddystone EID is at last, we've got a standard way of doing conditional access, controlling who sees the beacon and who doesn't see the beacon. Whereas before that was entirely proprietary. And that locked you in to whoever's beacon you were by it was a platform and a platform and probably by a startup, which is kind of a scary thing. So that kind of brings me on to two things. First one is how important you think this ability to manage who sees the beacon is who sees the beacon. And then the follow on to that is how does that impact mapping applications? We go more into that second part, if that's not.

  Chris Charles 34:21

  Yes, I think I think the second part actually is the answer the first part, and that is how does how does how does the use case for what does the use case require in the form of security? And I think there are a number of applications when you really doesn't, it doesn't matter if someone else is the beacon. If someone else gets a message and someone else and three other people get a message, then then that's that's not a that's not a bad thing. In other situations. Obviously, it's absolutely vital that you're sending a message to a user or interacting with a particular person. So I think there's a huge bit that is use case dependent on that security. And again, another one of the things that we will help discuss with with clients understand what that requirement is. As far as mapping goes, I'd say that the security point for us is largely focused around what internet connection, what connectivity, you can require us to manage that security. And a lot of the security applications on the internet or with with the manufacturers require internet in order to decode or perhaps they can cache, maybe a week's worth of codes, all of which requires data and requires storage on the phones, etc. So we see that there's, there's a big, still a bit of a gap in getting the security, right, so that you don't need an internet connection the whole time. I don't know how many times you've visited a supermarket or the shopping center and gone, I've got no connection, and maybe the Wi Fi is flaky, or whatever. As soon as you start layering all of those things on to each other, it becomes a real pain to manage and a pain for users to use, at which point they stop.

  Steve Statler 36:00

  But seems like as an industry, we have to help solve that problem. Because, yeah, you're gonna have beacons like in an environment like this. So we don't care who sees beacons in this office. But if I'm electric, white goods manufacturer, last thing I want is my competitors triggering off of a beacon that I've put in the televisions or the refrigerators. That would be probably I'd lose my job if if I'm the app guy, and I've done that. And so it seems like if we can't solve that, then we're going to really hold back broad based deployment. Because we're talking about an multimillion dollar projects aren't really over 1000s of stores. And once it's in there, and some suddenly, there's a headline that you just enabled Amazon to compete with you. It's your share price is going to be impacted. So if we don't solve that, then there's a real problem. Would you agree with that?

  Chris Charles 36:56

  Yeah, I would, I would agree there's there's a number of situations where it's absolutely vital to have that requirement. I guess it's down to it's down to the brand is down to the use case. But there are situations I mean, anything unless there's an interesting new use cases coming through with payments, for example, obviously payments, security is absolutely crucial. So having that having that security layer is definitely going to be a growing part of the solution.

  Steve Statler 37:22

  So your clients include airports, Heathrow Airport is only websites that presumably they are their customer or partner. We went with the working Ephraim. So what did they do in terms of encryption, because on one hand, if I'm the IT guy at Heathrow, I'm going to go to my boss and say, I want some money for a weekend project. And they're gonna say, well as that help passages, and how am I going to cover the costs? Can I make some money because he throws an expensive things around, so or change the airport to whatever I have for you. You want. So it seems like they're stuck with this competing thing. On one hand, I would like to charge people to access my beacons. On the other hand, I want a utility that is available for everyone, especially for navigation. And it seems like Apple and Google are starting to use beacons in their maps products. So if I'm like scrambling my UUIDs and MAC addresses, then in some ways I might be undermining the experience of someone who's just using Google Maps. On the other hand, I want to charge Cadbury's and Starbucks and everyone else who has an interest in addressing my passengers. So how to what's what's your is that really a dilemma? Or is it? Is it not? And what do you do if you're a venue?

  Chris Charles 38:40

  So I think it depends, again, it depends on the situation, I think that if you're an airport, then it's worth bearing in mind throughout all of this, that trigger to trigger a message on an app, you need to have an app installed. And that is the big challenge. So I don't know if if Starbucks wants to advertise in Costa for example, then you'd need to have the Starbucks app and be in Costa and Starbucks have worked out what beacon is in Costa and mapped it and showed that it's not changing. There's there's a lot of requirements there. And also it is is very clear what they're doing in the fact that they're doing it. So I think that that actually that actually drives a big negative of people doing it because you're then associating your brand with potentially stealing stuff or interacting in a way that they maybe don't want to be interacted with. So there are some drivers that will I think change change those requirements. But it doesn't change the fact that yes, there are situations in in airports, for example, when you definitely wouldn't want anyone using using a network of beacons because you've got to make money from it somehow. And I think that that decision comes down to the venue and what We will do our best to advise that decision.

  Steve Statler 40:04

  How what happens as the map product? So we talked about you need to have an app installed, the one app that everyone has installed is Apple Maps or Google Maps or sometimes both. How does that impact your company's future? I'm sure, this is the first time you've been asked that question.

  Chris Charles 40:23

  Yeah, we don't see it as a problem at the moment. We're more than happy for Google and Apple to try and do some mapping indoors. At the moment, a lot of what they've been focusing on is Wi Fi based, because it is more widespread. And actually, probably very less. And if you've got, as you say, people who've got some rotating UUIDs, or rotating Bluetooth details, it suddenly makes it very difficult and actually incorrect for someone to to monitor that and use it for positioning if you don't have the venue's permission, because it can change. So we see Apple and Google going into bits with us. And we come out on top purely because of a few things, partly the flexibility. If you want to update your map on Google Maps, then it can take a long time for that to happen. It can be can be almost a month and a half or so in some situations we've seen. In addition, you want to add a beacon you want to change some messaging, etc. You can't do that, because you don't have the you don't have the app. And the most important point of all, this is the data. Those there was a really interesting article about Foursquare predicting us chains, revenue growth or decline this situation purely because of footfall and and if a if a venue is giving away that data to Google or Apple by saying hear us use your use your positioning engine in our store, then actually you've you've you've given away a huge amount of data that's usually commercially valuable. And we see that that is a situation that's not going to change in the near future. Because no, no, John Lewis, no, whatever it is, is going to want to give away their data to Google or Apple who can then be the setback to them, or use it in front of market interested ways.

  Steve Statler 42:11

  So there's clearly huge value in the data. And maybe that's one reason why Google is investing such a lot in Eddystone. Because that work doesn't come for free. And it sounds like one thing that I could do as a venue owner is, you know, if I want that data, and I don't want to give it for free to Google and Apple, there's I can use some kind of conditional access layer, rotation of the UIDs, and I could use your product and that way someone wants to navigate, go to the retailer app, go to the airports app, they can find out what they need to in terms of location, and you get controlled with the data. Yeah. All right. So how long have you guys been doing what you've been doing?

  Chris Charles 42:58

  So we started about three years ago now almost, when we first when beacons first came on the market, and we were we were almost doing the first testing of beacons as they came on the market. Obviously, that's evolved over time. And we've we've grown over that time as well.

  Steve Statler 43:18

  Yeah. So big. So over that time, what's what are the biggest surprises? What are the things that you were expecting? That didn't happen? Or things that you weren't expecting? That didn't happen?

  Chris Charles 43:30

  In question, I would say that the things that we didn't expect were a continually new use case appearing in our inbox every every few weeks, that we haven't thought of hadn't hadn't planned, it didn't expect. Some of the things that we did expect, we did expect that beacons would be big, they do enable a huge number of use cases, they do enable in, in in store experiences and kind of shopping bricks and mortar experiences, to actually catch up with some of the things that you can do online. And we see that that's that's the only way that in retail, for example, that's the only way that it's really going to keep on surviving, is by starting to make the experience as smooth and easy as it is online. The fact that Amazon have clicked to order on on a product is a super smooth, super easy experience. And it arrives two days later, or a day later, or even an hour later. In store. You still can't even find a product necessarily.

  Steve Statler 44:32

  Yeah, sometimes people when I'm trying to explain what beacons enable you to do, I talked about what's digital physical convergence, and that really doesn't mean anything. So I get puzzled look. So then what I say is, well, everything that Amazon can do online, retailers should be able to do and there's still whether it's search, personalization, one click checkout, essentially, it's that and what I have heard is that retailers are going through see change in terms of who's managing them. And it's actually the digital guys, the people that run the websites that are starting to make the decisions, and they're looking for, where's my foot stream analysis to go with my clickstream analysis? Have you seen that?

  Chris Charles 45:15

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, so we actually found a year ago that retail was as dead as the market. And there was such cut downs and cutbacks on budgets that it did go very quiet. And I think now that has changed and a lot of retailers are understanding that actually, now is the perfect time to invest and to position yourselves ahead of the competitors and and do something new and innovative and and make your shoppers experience better. Obviously, this is just retail but it applies. It applies to every every market.

  Steve Statler 45:51

  Last question, which is one that I want to play with asking everybody see how that works, which is, you know, what advice would you give to someone thinking of starting a beacon business? Beacon in the broadest sense software hardware?

  Chris Charles 46:07

  I'd say that we see we see new people in a deacon environment on a weekly basis and almost so the key thing is finding yourself differentiator to be that in hardware finding yourself a differentiator be that in software, finding yourself a unique use case or a set of clients who you are 100% focused on, find something that helps differentiate yourself from the sea of baking companies that are appearing.

  Steve Statler 46:33

  Very good. Okay, Chris. Well, I really appreciate your time. Thanks for being our first interview subject. It's been really interesting, and thanks everyone for participating in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Beacoystem, and the Proxmox system.