Pole Star Unveils Mall Buddy App To Guide Shoppers Inside and Outside Shopping Malls
Written by LBSzone
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Mall Buddy, based on a mature technology combined with 10 years business experience in deploying indoor location solutions globally
PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 11 2012 – Pole Star,
pioneer and world leader in indoor location technology, announces the release of
Mall Buddy. Available on Android, Mall Buddy is the only application to provide
shoppers with indoor-location maps and turn-by-turn directions for 9 of the
major shopping malls in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mall Buddy covers the Sunvalley Shopping Center, San Francisco Center,
Eastridge Mall, Stonestown Galleria, Valley Fair, Hillsdale Shopping Center,
Stanford Shopping Center, Oakridge Mall and The Shops at Tanforan. The
application is now available for free for most Android devices on the Google
Play store at http://tinyurl.com/mallbuddy.
Mall Buddy shows how NAO Campus, Pole Star’s Indoor location
technology, turns your mobile apps into an invaluable smart assistant. With Mall
Buddy, shopping is fun again! The application is intuitive, easy to use and
allows users save precious time.
“Mall Buddy is a showcase for NAO Campus and a clear demonstration of what our
technology can offer to large, indoor venue mobile applications.” says Christian
Carle, CEO of Pole Star. “Retailers and venue owners strive for real-time,
tailored interactions with customers who are often only a few steps away from
them. Our technology provides priceless ‘contextual services’ to bring customers
into a store. For the first time, retailers and malls can get the right offer to
the right customer, at the right time and in the right place”
Mall Buddy also demonstrates the capability to combine both outdoor and
indoor maps to guide users to their favorite shopping location, from wherever
they are, and once inside the mall, to provide accurate turn-by-turn directions
to their favorite stores and restaurants.
Mall Buddy displays store information, including phone numbers, opening hours
and website. When shoppers are close enough, they can check-in and share it with
friends on Facebook. The application is also available on the Facebook
Appcenter: https://www.facebook.com/appcenter/polestarmallbudy?locale=en_US
With NAO Campus, indoor location is finally a reality
With the release of the Mall Buddy application, Pole Star has proven that an
accurate Indoor/Outdoor Location solution can be deployed today, in just a few
weeks, on a very large scale, including multiple venues and at low cost.
Mall Buddy was deployed using Pole Star’s unique indoor location fusion
engine, NAO Campus, which leverages the mall’s existing
Wi-Fi infrastructure and smartphone sensors to determine users’ exact location.
The technology is compatible with 80% of the smartphones on the market (iOS,
Android, Windows, RIM…) and may be integrated in existing or future
applications.
Indoor maps of the application have been supplied by Micello (www.micello.com), a
leading provider of indoor location maps. The collaboration between Pole Star
and Micello enables delivery of the best services to users and provides a
significant opportunity for development in the near future.
“The market for indoor location services is finally mature, with multi-venue
owners, marketing agencies and major telcos, understanding perfectly well the
value of hyperlocal and real-time interactions with customers,” adds Christian
Carle. “With NAO Campus, Pole Star brings into the real world what has existed
for years on line thanks to key words or clicks: advanced behavior marketing
analysis, context-aware and targeted messaging. NAO Campus has forever changed
the way consumers buy things and how retailers grow their
business.”
About Pole Star
Pole Star, created in 2002 and based in Europe (France -Toulouse & Paris)
and the United States (Palo Alto, California), is the indoor location pioneer
and world leader. With over 43 million square feet covered by NAO Campus, Pole
Star already has an impressive customer portfolio including airports, malls, and
convention centers throughout the world along with an extensive, trusted partner
network. The NAO Campus fusion engine combines data from existing Wi-Fi
infrastructure, Bluetooth low energy and smartphone motion sensors to determine
the most accurate indoor location. Entirely embedded and requiring no data
connection, NAO Campus is designed to be deployed on a multi-venue basis.
Including a set of software tools allowing partners to implement it
independently, NAO Campus is currently the most cost-effective, scalable and
Smartphone agnostic (Android, iOS…) indoor location solution.
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