Wi-Fi Ranging Arrives on Android 15
Finally, indoor location tracking will get a significant revamp in Android 15 with the addition of Wi-Fi Ranging, a new technology that promises to shave accuracy below 1 meter. This is an enhancement brought in with the newly adopted protocol IEEE 802.11az, a radical improvement of Wi-Fi positioning, making it more accurate and robust than ever. With the needs for position location technologies in indoor environments such as shopping malls, airports, and convention centers continuing to grow, Wi-Fi Ranging on Android 15 may finally give both consumers and enterprise alike a game-changing advantage in indoor positioning.
Evolution of Wi-Fi Location Tracking
Over many years, GPS has seen much use as the gold standard for navigation outdoors. The problem is that when it comes to indoor positioning, GPS simply doesn’t work because its signal is blocked by walls and other obstacles. Indoors, however, there are plenty of WiFi signals. Consequently, location tracking using WiFi has been considered and discussed for quite a long period of time. Traditionally, location tracking with Wi-Fi relied upon the measurement of signal strengths received by a device from nearby Wi-Fi access points – APs. With this method, even though it did provide an approximation of its general location, it could only deliver accuracy within a 10-15-meter radius, which is quite broad for indoor navigation or other accurate location-based services.
This above scenario started to change after the introduction of IEEE 802.11mc in 2015, popularly referred to as Wi-Fi RTT. Wi-Fi RTT is based on a technology called Fine Timing Measurement, which measures the time of flight of a signal from your device to an AP and vice-versa. Wi-Fi RTT can deploy multiple APs that will enable much finer indoor positioning, with its accuracy already achieving 1-2 meters. That upgrade was huge but not without its limitation, as it requires specific hardware and support for deployment, which is not yet broadly available.
Then came the major breakthrough when the IEEE 802.11az, better known as Wi-Fi Ranging, was announced, and Android 15 began supporting it. Wi-Fi Ranging further increases the resolution and range of Wi-Fi-based positioning, shrinking location tracking to up to 0.4 meters in ideal conditions while allowing greater scalability and flexibility.
What is Wi-Fi Ranging and Why Does It Matter?
Wi-Fi Ranging builds off of Wi-Fi RTT, yet comes with several enhancements to deliver even more granular and robust location accuracy. This includes sub-meter location tracking, a serious leap from the previous Wi-Fi RTT implementations. Wi-Fi Ranging operates on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands and the newly supported 6 GHz band, offering greater bandwidth and more device support.
Wi-Fi Ranging enjoys a few key advantages over other technologies in location tracking, including Ultra-Wideband and Bluetooth 6.0 with Channel Sounding. While both UWB and Bluetooth offer better accuracy in some instances, Wi-Fi has a number of inherent benefits that make it far more suitable for wide usage. It is supported by a wide range of devices, from smartphones to routers; it boasts very good range, with reliable performance even in environments with a high density of devices. Wi-Fi Ranging will be designed to scale, meaning many devices can work effectively in crowded spaces like malls or office buildings without major loss of accuracy or performance. Also, the ability of Wi-Fi to pass through walls and any other obstacles is incomparable with UWB and Bluetooth, which will make it very useful in tall indoors to track the location of something or anyone. Wi-Fi Ranging is also more cost-effective than rivals and easier to deploy at scale, making it one of the attractive options for businesses and developers that want to implement indoor navigation or location-based services.
Android 15: Bringing Wi-Fi Ranging to Your Pocket
But while the arrival of Wi-Fi Ranging support in Android 15 is a massive step forward for advanced location technologies being integrated into consumer devices, not all Android devices will immediately support this new feature. To utilize Wi-Fi Ranging, a device requires specific hardware to support the new IEEE 802.11az standard, such as Qualcomm’s just-announced FastConnect 7900 connectivity chip, which will provide built-in support for Wi-Fi Ranging.
Android 15 introduces support for the 802.11az HAL, meaning that Android 15 and later devices equipped with compatible Wi-Fi chips will fall back to the Wi-Fi Ranging technology if available.
That’s a big improvement over the previous generations, which could only fall back on the Wi-Fi RTT if the hardware didn’t support 802.11az. Additionally, Android applications using Android’s Wi-Fi RTT API will gain the capabilities of Wi-Fi Ranging once hardware supports it. For all the capabilities of Wi-Fi Ranging, there’s one key barrier to its mainstream adoption: infrastructure.
This is the case, even as, among Android devices specifically targeted, many are more and more capable with Wi-Fi RTT. Wi-Fi AP coverage remains limited to the support of the 802.11az standard. In fact, for Wi-Fi Ranging to work, the nearby access points need to be updated to support this new standard, which very well may entail a firmware update in the case of many Wi-Fi 6 or later routers and access points. While manufacturers should update their existing hardware, it might take some time for the Wi-Fi Ranging feature to become widely available. ### Wi-Fi Ranging Use Cases
Applications of Wi-Fi Ranging could be huge. Probably one of the nearest use cases to come will be in retail, to provide precise indoor navigation to end customers. One can think of being able to walk into a big department store and, from a mobile application, receive step-by-step directions to an exact aisle or product one might be looking for. Wi-Fi Ranging is going to be able to be used by retailers for tracking inventory, enhancing store layout, and optimizing customer experiences based on precise location data.
Beyond retail, Wi-Fi Ranging could transform smart home devices-for example, a smart home assistant could use Wi-Fi Ranging to determine which room you’re in and adjust lighting, temperature, or other settings according to your preferences. Another example could be enhancing the performance of AR applications by better placing virtual objects in indoor spaces.
Large public spaces, such as airports, convention centers, or hospitals, might also benefit from more accurate navigation via Wi-Fi Ranging. They would provide users with directions to the gate or department, respectively, with accuracy greater than ever before. Yet another use case that underlines this is that Wi-Fi Ranging can be the key enabling technology for indoor autonomous robots or drones, where precision becomes the top priority of avoiding obstacles and completing tasks.
Challenges Ahead: Hardware and Deployment
While the introduction of Wi-Fi Ranging is an excellent progress point, it is equally obvious that at least a few challenges remain to mass-market adaptation.
First, not every Android device will support Wi-Fi Ranging through hardware. As mentioned, Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7900 chip is one of the first to include support, and it will take some time before the technology becomes standard in mainstream devices. Secondly, most of the Wi-Fi access points-installed mainly in older buildings or organizations-would require a firmware update for 802.11az support, which might not happen quite so fast. Another challenge is that the Wi-Fi ecosystem is fragmented, with multiple Wi-Fi standards in use today, including Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, and Wi-Fi 6E. As a result, it will take some time before 802.11az gets widely deployed. But with an increasing demand for enabling location tracking indoors with precision and upsurge in the adoption of Wi-Fi in connected environments, the Wi-Fi Ranging feature would eventually emerge as something quite pervasive in modern smartphones and other devices.
Conclusion
Wi-Fi Ranging is a sea change in indoor location tracking.
With the technology’s ability to provide accuracy at sub-meter scale levels, applications covering retail, healthcare, smart homes to public navigation may be realized. Although the full force of Wi-Fi Ranging will probably be a few years away, Android 15 has set the stage for a future where indoor navigation can be equally accurate and reliable as GPS navigation outdoors. As hardware support improves, and the Wi-Fi infrastructure catches up with the need, Wi-Fi Ranging is likely to feature as a cornerstone in the next generation of location-based services.
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