Skyhook: How It Works

Overview Coverage Architecture Core Engine Performance Location Privacy Patents

How it Compares

Version 2.0 of Skyhook's hybrid positioning system (XPS) is the new standard in location-technology offering numerous advantages over competing solutions.

1. Speed: In any deployment model XPS is the most responsive positioning system available: it can determine a user's exact location from a cold start within seconds, even without network assistance. No other system produces an accurate location from a cold start as fast as XPS.
2. Accuracy: Across all environments, XPS is the most accurate positioning system available. No other terrestrial or satellite-based positioning system can match its accuracy across indoors and outdoors scenarios in urban and rural environments.
3. Availability: Each underlying location technology has relative strengths and weaknesses. While GPS works well in rural areas, it is completely ineffective in urban areas with tall buildings (since GPS requires an unobstructed view of the sky in order to produce a reliable location fix). Cellular tower triangulation, while having extensive coverage, does not result in accurate location information. XPS combines the strengths of both of these with the world's leading Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS), resulting in a location-platform that works in -all- environments (suburban / urban and indoors / outdoors).
4. Reliability: In congested environments, the performance of time-of-arrival systems such as GPS, A-GPS, and network location is severely degraded by the phenomenon of multi-path: signals bouncing off of various surfaces and reaching the receiving antenna by two or more paths. While GPS is extremely accurate out in the open, its accuracy varies widely in congested urban settings. Networked-based systems often do not work outside of home areas - a growing problem as users become increasingly mobile and roam across networks. This variance in experience undermines users' confidence in the system, because they cannot be sure when to trust it. XPS consistently produces more accurate positioning data in these environments than any other system. This frees users from worrying about their particular environment when using their favorite location service.
5. Power: Without sacrificing location accuracy, XPS 2.0 delivers 5 to 10 times better power conservation compared to A-GPS, due to quick location acquisition time.
6. Cost & Simplicity: XPS is a software-only system that obviates the need to embed specialized chipsets on the device, or install hardware components at the cellular base-station. Using existing mobile devices and network infrastructure, operators can add LBS applications - such as social networking or gaming - to such devices as smartphones or media players. Unlike any other positioning system, XPS can be either installed at production time or downloaded later wirelessly.