06 Aug 2013 Ruckus Wireless Acquires YFind: Smart Wi-Fi Meets Location Based Wi-Fi

recently announced that it has bought real-time location tracking start up, YFind. Retail Wi-Fi has become something of a buzzword in recent times with many vendors not able to deliver on large claims. Ruckus are certainly pioneers, the success of the company has been built on that so no doubt any acquisition made has to have the same “Ruck-factor”. It seems YFind has the “Ruck-factor” and here’s why.

Who & What is YFind?

Singapore start up YFind provides location based services, geo-tracking & analytics for retailers. A visitor can use navigation apps directing them to shops, individual products, and amenities whilst also giving geo-targeted vouchers/offers. The retailer has a comprehensive dashboard to track the footfall of the visitors, determine the popular areas for advertising, in-store conversion rates and visitor flow, customer & geographically triggered visitor vouchers, offers & promotions.

YFind co-founder, Melvin Yuan explains: “If you’re a customer, this means you can now easily find amenities like the nearest toilets and the right ATMs. If you’re a retailer or mall operator, it means you will be able to engage your customers more effectively – telling them what’s available around them, immediate and relevant promotions, and what else is happening in the mall at any point in time. It’s real-time, contextual customer engagement at its finest.”

Through the Ruckus YFind a retailer can review the performance of its retail space proving valuable real-time metrics:

• Unique Visitors: this represents a clear evaluation of customer traffic. It gives an idea of shopper volume, not just footfall with entry/exit counting.

• New vs. Repeat Visitors: because the Ruckus YFind dashboard tracks historical data, it can show the ratio of new visitors to repeat visitors in your store space.

• Dwell Time: you can see how much time shoppers are spending in your store and use the intelligence to ensure for longer dwell times.

• Real-time Footfall Heat Map: analysis of shoppers in your space, in real-time thus enabling better planning of customer traffic flow. In addition to this, you can also define “zones” of your space and compare traffic data with other “zones”. For a department store or a supermarket, different departments & isles can be compared between each other to see the effectiveness & popularity of each “zone”. In a shopping centre, each shop can be divided as a “zone” to track the visitor difference between each shop, from there marketers can implement new strategies and track the footfall uplift to measure effectiveness.

How Will YFind Work with Ruckus Wireless?

It’s the next big thing; retail, hotel & events Wi-Fi has now got the ammo to deliver more than a service! Integrated with the ZoneFlex access point range, Ruckus Wireless will ensure that the pioneering YFind technology.

How Can Wi-Fi Track a Clients Location

A technique called Client and Access Point Triangulation. This uses all nearby access points nearby to determine (within 3ft) the location of a client device. Using a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and signal to noise ratio, 3+ access points can locate where a device is in relation to distance away from each AP. An RSSI measures the signal strength (dbs) of each client from all nearby Access Points and combined with some brainbox mathematical calculations, it is able to work out the location of the device.

Using AP triangulation combined with wireless fingerprinting, Ruckus Wireless Smart Wi-Fi has just become even Smarter. It seems Ruckus’ thing is developing (in this case acquiring) technologies that effortlessly fit together making their Wi-Fi performance the best.

Is Retail Wi-Fi Analytics & Location Based Services the New Google Analytics?

In November 2005 Google released Google Analytics. Since then we have been able to track detailed statistics about online shoppers including website trends over set periods of time, where visitors come from and what they do on the website, which areas are the most popular, how people are finding a website and how many leads are derived from online marketing efforts.

Digital advertising has grown tremendously from its birth in 1996 and has sky-rocketed from 2005; Google releasing Analytics. Yes… the internet has grown 566% from 2000 – 2012, but there is more to that. Google releasing the first widely available web analytical software essentially tracking the online “footfall” of users meant e-stores could place shrewder adverts, position better located offers and in turn sell MORE.

Wi-Fi location based analytics and Ruckus Wireless YFind is retail’s answer to Google Analytics. Until now in large retail spaces, it has been near impossible to discover what shoppers are doing. Google Analytics has made it possible with online web tracking, now we have footfall tracking accurate within 3ft for the offline.

Conclusion

Ruckus Wireless are pushing the boundaries in not only retail Wi-Fi, but Wi-Fi as a whole. Ruckus already have BeamFlex antennas and ChannelFly of which have solidified Ruckus as the #1 for speed, coverage & capacity. Now we all wait with anticipation to see the future developments with YFind as Ruckus advance the technology further.

As a Ruckus Wireless Distributor UK, we are able to plan, scope & supply Ruckus Wireless. Contact us today.

George’s Google+ Profile