Pinpoint GmbH is presenting a new generation of precise indoor navigation at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026 in Barcelona. The start up company will demonstrate how smartphones, smartwatches and smart glasses with integrated UWB (ultra-wideband) chips can be used by anyone for the first time for highly accurate navigation within buildings – regardless of the device manufacturer or operating system.
This advancement relies on the seamless interoperability of UWB radio chips produced by various hardware manufacturers. It is enabled by the FiRa Consortium, where leading smartphone and UWB chip makers collaborate to establish common standards. FiRa has defined a unified UWB infrastructure for use within buildings, ensuring compatibility across platforms. As a result, mobile devices from different ecosystems — including both Android and Apple devices — can be used on equal terms.
Pinpoint will demonstrate a vivid application scenario live at the trade fair: iPhone and Android users can navigate directly and precisely to each other in large crowds. In addition, Pinpoint will show how hands-free navigation is possible with smart glasses – a decisive advantage for trade fairs, industrial facilities, hospitals, or transportation hubs.
The technological basis of the solution is the wirelessly synchronized building satellites (“UWB SATlets”) developed by Pinpoint. They establish the reference between mobile devices and the local building structure. The nanosecond-accurate time signals of these SATlets enable UWB-enabled devices to determine their position with an accuracy of a few centimeters – even in complex indoor environments.
Thanks to the FiRa standard, all devices with a UWB chip – whether smartphones, smartwatches, or smart glasses – can receive these high-precision time stamps and use them as a starting point for a precisely guided route through buildings. This makes indoor navigation cross-manufacturer, scalable, and suitable for mass use for the first time.
Another milestone: Apple is the first manufacturer to open its device API for access to the UWB chip. This allows developers to integrate the position data calculated in the device directly into applications. This paves the way for completely new location-based services, such as service-to-phone, stopless access, or find my friend indoors.
With its solution, Pinpoint will demonstrate at MWC 2026 how precise indoor navigation is evolving from a special application to an everyday function of modern mobile devices – interoperable, highly accurate, and ready for the mass market.
