Meraki MR34 Cloud Managed AP MR34-HW Leaflet

5 Conclusion  

Thanks to widely available “smart” devices equipped with WiFi, Cisco Meraki’s wireless access 
points can detect and provide location analytics to report on user foot traffic behavior. This can 
be especially useful in multi-site retail or enterprise deployments where admins or departments 
beyond IT wish to learn more about trends and user engagement. Coupled with traditional 
reporting from WiFi systems on users, devices, applications and websites, Cisco Meraki now 
provides a holistic 360-degree view of online and offline user traffic. 

Leveraging our globally distributed datacenter architecture, Cisco Meraki has built an end-to-end 
system that can aggregate data from thousands of endpoints for effective collection, analysis, 
and presentation of this data on the Meraki Dashboard. Comparisons can be run between 
different sites and time periods, and Cisco Meraki’s network tagging functionality allows for 
an unlimited variation of comparisons by creating “batches” of networks that can be grouped 
together based on district, region, or any other preference. In addition to the built-in location 
analytics view, the CMX API enables Cisco Meraki customers to detect and aggregate real-time 
data for custom applications. 

With these developments in the location arena comes a renewed emphasis on Cisco Meraki’s 
commitment to privacy. Security measures have been taken to help protect user privacy — for 
the built-in analytics view, all data is anonymized and modified to a degree where it is impossible 
to derive the original MAC address. The CMX API is optional, with a globally available opt-out 
mechanism on the Cisco Meraki website and recommended practices for our customers to 
provide an opt-in to end-users regarding location detection. By addressing privacy concerns 
and building a truly scalable location platform, Cisco Meraki can facilitate an effective rollout of 
tens of thousands of locations; enterprise customers can therefore look forward to a new era 
of leveraging their wireless networking rollouts to conduct more effective business by better 
understanding their end-users more effectively through location analytics.