Founder of Estimote, Inc. (YC S13) here — we do beacons.
In Project Aria video, they claim to have installed beacons at an airport to enable indoor location, only to dismiss it as something that "doesn't scale."
Instead, they say they "trained" an AI model using vision from glasses, allowing for vision-based localization.
So, here’s an honest question: which approach is actually easier, more cost-effective, and energy-efficient?
1) Deploying 100 or even 1,000 wireless, battery-operated beacons that last 5–7 years—something a non-tech person can set up in a day or two.
2) Training an AI model for each airport, then constantly burning compute power from camera-equipped glasses or phones that barely last a few hours.
1) Is a $1-$20M business requiring "humans in the loop" deploying, monitoring, and maintaining beacons with a single purpose, getting past lots of "humans with opinions" on "aesthetics" and "not in my back yard".
2) Is a $1-??? business requiring a few dedicated nerds working on CV with inf more applications and doesn't require "invading" physical buildings you dont own.
In Project Aria video, they claim to have installed beacons at an airport to enable indoor location, only to dismiss it as something that "doesn't scale."
Instead, they say they "trained" an AI model using vision from glasses, allowing for vision-based localization.
So, here’s an honest question: which approach is actually easier, more cost-effective, and energy-efficient?
1) Deploying 100 or even 1,000 wireless, battery-operated beacons that last 5–7 years—something a non-tech person can set up in a day or two.
2) Training an AI model for each airport, then constantly burning compute power from camera-equipped glasses or phones that barely last a few hours.
Thoughts?
2) Is a $1-??? business requiring a few dedicated nerds working on CV with inf more applications and doesn't require "invading" physical buildings you dont own.