Can I programmatically determine exact location in Windows Store app?

Question

I need to write an app that tells me if I am within 1 foot or so (1 meter if I have to) of a location.  We plan to have this app running on a Windows 8 tablet with built in 3G such as a Panasonic Toughpad.

It will be in a feed truck that drives the length of the trough of a pen of animals (~100 ft in length).  During the feeding of a pen, we want to compare the percent traveled vs percent of feed delivered to help the drive distribute evenly.

I'm new to Windows Store development (an old WinForms guy).  Can a C# Windows Store app do what I need it to do?  I'm not even sure I can do it with a WinForms app, but since I keep hearing that Windows Store is the future and WinForms is on the way out, I figure I better go with the more modern platform (although it may be missing things since so new).

Thanks for any feedback.

 

Answer 1

You can get location with a GeoLocator and set the desired accuracy to high. The precision your asking for is probably higher than the hardware can support.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.devices.geolocation.geolocator.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.devices.geolocation.geolocator.desiredaccuracy.aspx

For fixed locations you may do better with Bluetooth or RFID tagging, but I'm not familiar with the details. There isn't high level support for tagging in the Windows location libraries, so you'd need to use the Bluetooth API directly.

--Rob

Answer 2

The in-box location provider uses WiFi trangulation, which can provide an accuracy of 50-100m.  As Rob states, to get more granular location you would need to provide a location provider driver.

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowshardware/Sensors-Geolocation-Driver-5f2a11d6

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