IndoorAtlas Aims to Use Magnetic Fields to Map the Insides of Buildings

Google Maps doesn’t work so well indoors. This is because signals from GPS satellites don’t easily penetrate inside of buildings -- the signals are about as strong as a dim light bulb -- and help from Wi-Fi will only get you so far. But there are numerous outfits that are aiming to fix that.

In a Q&A with Janne Haverinen, the CEO of IndoorAtlas, a startup that has spun out of Finland’s University of Oulu, Wall Street Journal inquired about the startup’s technology, which makes use of the unique magnetic properties in every building to create a sort of fingerprint. It does this using the compass chip that’s inside every smartphone. The plan for IndoorAtlas, which recently opened an office in Sunnyvale, CA, is to give developers a set of tools to build apps that harness indoor -navigation capabilities for malls, museums, or other indoor tourist attractions, for instance. “Of course, the real action is with retailers. Steer a consumer to the precise location of the product they need when they need it, the thinking goes, and you significantly boost the chance they’re going to buy,” Haverinen said. Likewise, the technology could also be useful in advertising to consumers when they’re in a particular location, as was depicted in the movie Minority Report.