Bluetooth vs Ultra-Wideband (UWB): which is best for indoor location system?

Last updated: 15/04/2025

• Will Ultra-Wideband (UWB) replace Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons when it comes to indoor positioning?

• Which technology to use today for indoor location?

• We discuss the pros and cons of indoor location using Ultra-Wideband and Bluetooth Low Energy 

As indoor positioning systems continue to enjoy enormous adoption rates, the question of which technological foundation you should build your system on continues to be asked regularly. Of the various technologies that we routinely get asked about here at Pointr, two are the most commonly mentioned outside of WiFi - Bluetooth, and UWB.

Just like Bluetooth, the Ultra-Wideband technology gives devices the ability to determine each other's location when they're in close proximity. It means it could be used for a variety of location-based services, such as wayfinding inside venues and contextual notifications. Both signal types have advantages, and drawbacks, that we'll explore in this post, in order to help you make an informed decision on which will work best for your indoor location use case.

Indoor positioning using ultra-wideband (UWB)

What is ultra-wideband?

Ultra-wideband (UWB) is a radio technology that uses low power consumption to achieve high bandwidth connections. 

UWB vs Bluetooth (BLE) - what are the core differences?

• UWB has a greater range - around 300 meters compared to 100 meters for Bluetooth - though in practice, both technologies have similar ranges in which they're truly effective
• UWB is capable of transmitting more data, particularly compared to Bluetooth Low Energy. This means that UWB is theoretically capable of greater accuracy than BLE - more data means more information for an indoor positioning system to parse and use in order to determine an end device's position
• Bluetooth-enabled devices are far more common, including almost all modern smartphones. UWB is found only in select smartphone models and specialist devices such as AirTags
  
  

How does UWB indoor positioning work?

Ultra-wideband offers the potential for positioning technology thanks to two key signals - “Time of Flight” (known as ToF) and “Time Difference of Arrival” (TDoA). By algorithmically combining these two signals, systems are able to calculate a user’s position, sometimes with a higher degree of accuracy than even Bluetooth low energy (BLE) can.

After a slow roll out, UWB is now available across numerous mobile devices, increasing its viability as an indoor positioning technology. All top of the range iPhones from the iPhone 11 now support UWB, as do the Google Pixel 6 Pro and 7 Pro, along with several newer models of Samsung.

On paper, ultra-wideband sounds like an exciting future technology to watch. At Pointr, we will be supporting ultra-wideband if and when the time is right. However, we don't expect a quick transition due to several challenges, which we highlight below.

Advantages of UWB for positioning and localization

Accuracy

The main advantage of a UWB-based system is the potential level of accuracy that can be achieved, by virtue of the amount of data that UWB transmits compared to BLE and other signal types. A fully calibrated UWB system is capable of achieving accuracy levels of under 1 meter, whereas BLE systems tend to offer accuracy of between 5 and 3 meters. 

While this discrepancy in accuracy won't make a tremendous amount of difference for most use cases, where it does matter is for companies who need complete precision, such as in a warehouse or industrial context where a system needs the ability to navigate a user not only to a specific shelf stack, but a specific bin on that shelf.

Drawbacks of UWB positioning and localization

Ultra-wideband adoption currently lags far behind Bluetooth

While UWB has begun to appear on certain devices, it's far from common. This means that if you're a business owner looking to enable an indoor positioning system, attempting to do so with UWB will mean excluding the majority of your potential users. 

Even as smartphone manufacturers begin to implement UWB within their new devices, between those who have yet to add it to their future device roadmaps and the time it takes for legacy devices to drop out of circulation, it will take at least several years before UWB approaches the ubiquity levels required to make it a viable alternative to Bluetooth for a consumer- or public-facing IPIN system. The recently-released iPhone 16E doesn't include ultra wideband as a cost-saving measure, suggesting that even Apple, who have been at the forefront of UWB technology, still see it as a luxury feature, rather than a must-have like Bluetooth.

Improving Bluetooth accuracy

Though UWB has accuracy capabilities that are likely to never be matched by BLE, Bluetooth is continuing to make strides in terms of the accuracy of its positioning. 

In addition to this, systems like Pointr's Deep Location® are constantly improving their ability to interpret Bluetooth signals, meaning the gap between UWB and BLE based systems is falling.

Furthermore, thanks to BLE's improving accuracy, UWB's additional precision is generally unnecessary for the majority of use cases, meaning the additional cost, complications when installing, and lack of adoption means the improved accuracy is not worth the trade off.

Cost

UWB has two chief costs, both of which play a significant role when it comes to deciding if it's right for you versus a competing technology such as BLE. The first cost is the hardware itself, which is typically considerably more expensive than BLE beacons, which have been decreasing in price regularly over the last few years.

The second, and potentially larger, cost is the end devices. As discussed above, many consumer smartphones don't have UWB. This means that for most UWB systems currently, the business or organization (such as a warehouse owner) will also need to provide end devices, in the form of specialized UWB receivers or smartphones with UWB capability, further increasing the cost of such a system.

Indoor Positioning using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE Positioning)

Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons are small battery powered devices that connect to Bluetooth-enabled devices like smartphones. They use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to broadcast a signal for up to 70 meters. The user’s device, which may be a smartphone or a tablet, picks up these Bluetooth signals and use their strength to determine the distance from the beacon, usually in conjunction with an app on the device. The mechanism is very similar to lighthouses, which emit a light that is picked up by passing ships.

As the name suggests, Bluetooth Low Energy is extremely power efficient. A phone’s battery drain is less than 1% because of nearby beacons. Beacons are very efficient and cost-effective. They can be used inside WiFi access points or lighting infrastructure, or they can be powered by button cell batteries. Maintenance is often an infrequent necessity, making them ideal for high traffic venues. 

Unlike any other positioning technique, beacons provide background capabilities, which enables positioning even when the user is not using the app. For instance, if a visitor in a supermarket has a phone in their pocket, the retailer can still enable geofencing and contextual notifications, provided that the user has given prior consent. 

The benefits of Bluetooth Beacons for Indoor Positioning:

• Compatible with both Android and iOS 
• Low energy consumption - they don’t drain battery on the user’s phone
• Low deployment cost 
• Low maintenance - batteries don’t need to be replaced often 
• Provides background tracking capabilities, even when the app is closed
• Widespread adoption - almost all modern smartphones have Bluetooth enabled, meaning no additional infrastructure beyond BLE beacons is required to enable indoor positioning
  
  

Additional benefits when using Bluetooth Beacons in combination with Pointr’s Deep Location® technology: 

• High positioning accuracy of <3 meters when combined with other sensors
• Works offline with Deep Location®, even where there is no data connection

It is worth noting that a new Bluetooth Low Energy standard called BLE 5.1 is already released for hardware manufacturers. No one knows how long it will take before this is available on our phones but once it is, the accuracy of indoor positioning with beacons will go below 1 meter. 

Is UWB or Bluetooth best for an indoor positioning system?

Ultimately, the choice between a UWB- or Bluetooth-based system comes down in large part to use-case.

For indoor positioning systems where sub-one meter accuracy is needed, UWB is arguably the better choice. Thanks to the greater amount of data transmitted via UWB signals compared to Bluetooth, UWB technology combined with advanced and well-calibrated positioning systems can offer greater accuracy.

For the vast majority of other use cases, however, UWB's accuracy is excessive, and not worth the trade-offs that come with choosing it over BLE. BLE-based systems are generally:

• Less expensive - BLE beacons are cheaper than their UWB equivalents, and there's rarely a need to purchase end devices, as there often is with UWB systems
• Device agnostic - Bluetooth has been a fixture of modern smartphones for years, meaning BLE-based systems can be installed in consumer-facing spaces like shopping malls, airports, and more, and the vast majority of users will be able to make use of the system with very little uplift. The same cannot be said of UWB, which remains present in only high end modern smartphones. For this reason, UWB systems are generally restricted to closed environments where both the hardware and the user devices can be controlled, such as a warehouse where each member of staff is given a bespoke device
• Less battery intensive - BLE has been specifically designed to limit the amount of smartphone battery it drains when in use. UWB is more intensive, and thus is also harder to justify in direct to consumer applications.

Interested in indoor location?

At Pointr, we help you get the right location technology for your venue. We work with large building operators such as airports, shopping malls, hotels and corporate campuses to enable location-based services and analytics. We are hardware agnostic, which means we are not biased towards a technology or another. We analyze your needs and we decide which technology makes sense for you.

Unlock the power of location for your venue. 

Contact Us