The announced feature
Baidu has announced a new indoor navigation feature reserved for the HarmonyOS version of its maps application. According to IT Home, the service is based on Huawei's location technology known as Starlit (星迹) and allows users to navigate from the entrance of a shopping mall to an individual store, with the stated goal of precisely locating the destination.
Initial coverage includes 22 Chinese cities and 106 large commercial complexes or particularly popular shopping centers. According to the same source, the feature supports automatic floor switching, helps users find entrances and elevators, and maintains continuity of navigation between outdoor and indoor spaces without the need to switch from one mode to another.
The technology behind it and Huawei's figures
Starlit technology had been presented on October 12 during an event dedicated to technological innovation in Huawei devices. On that occasion, Li Xiaolong, CTO of the terminal group and head of hardware engineering and product development, illustrated the solution's potential, designed to address the difficulties of traditional location technologies in complex scenarios such as tunnels, lanes, underground parking lots, ski slopes, indoor environments, and highways.
For automotive navigation, Huawei indicated the use of a HiSilicon short-range chip combined with GNSS carrier-phase measurements, with an improvement in measurement accuracy of more than tenfold and sub-meter accuracy in lane-level navigation. Thanks to the integration of RTK and AI-PDR, the Mate 90 series would be the first to support track-level navigation on sports fields.
On the indoor front, Li explained that Huawei collaborates with partners to extend LBS location services within shopping complexes. The data cited by the source refer to 500,000 geofences for commercial areas and 17,000 buildings equipped with indoor location. Huawei's map, Petal Maps, would already offer store-level navigation in more than 260 shopping centers, with an expected addition of more than 200 per month.
What is confirmed and what remains to be verified
The certain fact is Baidu's announcement: the feature exists, is dedicated to HarmonyOS, and relies on Huawei's technology. The list of 22 cities and 106 facilities for the first phase is also confirmed. Information on accuracy, infrastructure coverage, and Huawei's figures instead comes from the company's statements reported by the source and should be considered as such.
Some operational aspects remain to be clarified: it is not stated which 22 cities or which 106 shopping centers are involved; it is not specified whether the feature will be available to all HarmonyOS users or only to certain models, nor whether it requires compatible Huawei devices. It is also not known whether the service is free or integrated into other products. These are relevant elements for assessing the actual impact of the launch, which at the moment can only be described in the terms announced.
