FAQs
Your questions, answered clearly.
Everything you need to know about DeepHub®, omlox, locating technologies, and how to get started. Answered directly and succinctly.
Basics & Terms
What is DeepHub®?
DeepHub® is the open layer where intelligent systems make sense of the physical world. It’s vendor-neutral and works across any locating technology. DeepHub pulls location data from any source, harmonizes it, and turns it into one unified spatial model accessible through open APIs. It was built by the same team that invented the omlox hub, and it’s the first hub to earn omlox certification.
Rather than just passing data through, DeepHub acts as centralized locating middleware. It converts raw location data into a standardized spatial model that MES, WMS, AGV control, and other systems can actually put to use.
→ Explore DeepHub®
What is omlox?
omlox is the world’s first open locating standard. It defines how locating technologies from different vendors, including UWB, RFID, BLE, and GPS, exchange location data in a unified way, so companies can mix and match hardware instead of getting locked into one vendor’s ecosystem. omlox is hosted by PI, the largest association for industrial automation. Flowcate co-initiated the omlox standard, invented the omlox hub, and donated the API spec to PI.
→ About the omlox standard
What is an RTLS (real-time locating system)?
A RTLS determines the position of assets, vehicles, or people in real-time, using technologies such as UWB, BLE, RFID, or optical systems. Each technology has different strengths in accuracy, range, and cost. There is no silver bullet in locating. That is why most operations end up combining several technologies, and why an open layer that unifies all data matters more than any single technology.
→ Learn more on our blog
What is Physical AI?
Physical AI describes AI systems that understand and act on the physical world, not just on text or images. On a shopfloor, that means software that knows where everything is, how it’s moving, and what to do about it: rebalance a zone, reroute a vehicle, book a resource. That kind of AI needs a spatial foundation, a live, unified model of the physical space. Building that foundation is what Flowcate does.
What are spatial AI agents?
Spatial AI agents are software agents that reason over a live spatial model and act on it, without a human watching a dashboard and triggering each step. If it only shows, alerts, or reports, it is not an agent. Flowcate has been building AI-driven location services since 2002; spatial AI agents are the next stage of that evolution.
Technology & Integration
Which locating technologies does DeepHub® support?
DeepHub® is vendor-neutral by design. It aggregates location data from any locating technology, such as UWB, BLE, RFID, Wi-Fi, GPS/GNSS, 5G, lidar, and camera-based systems, through omlox-based connectors, regardless of vendor. One API, one spatial model.
How does DeepHub® connect to MES, WMS, or SAP?
Applications and systems connect to DeepHub® through its REST API, WebSocket API, or MQTT. From here, they can subscribe to location updates, geofence events, or collision events. DeepHub handles the integration with each locating technology, so applications never have to. One integration replaces many.
→ Blog: Making SAP Smarter
Does DeepHub® run on-premises, at the edge, or in the cloud?
All three. DeepHub® ships as containers and runs wherever your architecture needs it: at the edge next to the shopfloor, in your data center, or in the cloud.
→ Documentation
Can camera or vision systems be integrated?
Yes. For DeepHub®, camera-based positioning is one source among many. Its data flows into the same spatial model as UWB, RFID, BLE, or any other locating technology. You don’t have to choose between vision and radio-based locating; aggregation beats substitution.
Vendor Neutrality & Lock-In
Can I combine locating hardware from different vendors?
Yes, that is precisely where DeepHub® excels. Hardware from different vendors feeds into one spatial model through omlox-based connectors: UWB from one vendor, BLE from another, RFID gates from a third. Mixed environments are the norm in real operations, not the exception. DeepHub makes them behave like one system.
What happens if I switch hardware vendors later?
Your integrations survive. Because MES, WMS, and other systems connect to DeepHub®’s APIs, not to any vendor’s proprietary system, you can swap or add locating hardware without touching those integrations. Replace the hardware, keep the spatial model, keep everything built on it.
Why does vendor neutrality matter for locating projects?
Locating projects rarely fail at accuracy. They fail when operations grow or change. Locked into one vendor’s ecosystem, every extension means re-integration, every price negotiation starts from weakness, and every new use case is limited to what that vendor offers. A vendor-neutral layer keeps every option open: the best technology per area, freely combined, exchangeable over time.
Getting Started & Company
How can I try DeepHub®?
Request a trial license through our contact form and clone the repo from GitHub. DeepHub® ships as containers, the documentation is public, and example integrations are on GitHub. Your team can evaluate it in your own environment.
→ Try it from GitHub
Do I buy DeepHub® directly or through partners?
Both options work. Most locating solutions are delivered by our partner ecosystem through system integrators who build on DeepHub®, hardware vendors with certified connectors, and software providers with DeepHub-ready products. Talk to us either way: we’ll connect you with the right setup for your project.
→ Partner Ecosystem
How long does a typical deployment take?
The software is the fast part: DeepHub® runs in containers and is up in minutes. Overall project time is driven by hardware installation and target-system integration, and varies with the size and complexity of your site. A trial in your own environment is the quickest way to a realistic estimate.
Who is Flowcate?
Flowcate GmbH is a software company based in Heidelberg, Germany, with a North American base in Vancouver, Canada. Our roots go back to a geoinformatics research group founded in 1998. Since 2023, we have operated as an independent company. We build DeepHub® and lead the omlox standard, the open foundation intelligent systems use to understand and act on the physical world.
→ Our story
What is Flowcate’s role in the omlox standard?
Flowcate co-initiated omlox, invented the omlox hub and the industrial location data model, and donated the API spec to PI. In this way, no single company owns the standard. Today, we lead the omlox hub development and contribute to the omlox safety working group. Additionally, locating systems from various vendors become omlox-capable through DeepHub® connectors.