At Shoptalk Europe 2023, Company Says It Is Poised to Revolutionize Retailing as the Industry Confronts New Challenges and Opportunities
- By establishing ambient IoT standards, a system of trillions of interconnected and intelligent devices is created, aimed at resolving the most significant difficulties in omnichannel retail, corporate sustainability, and food safety.
- Leading retailers, consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers, and technology corporations are endorsing these standards and have initiated the implementation of ambient IoT initiatives in their retail domains.
Wiliot, the Internet of Things pioneer whose IoT platform is enabling trillions of “things” to gain intelligence, is launching the latest iteration of its ambient IoT Data Platform at Shoptalk Europe 2023. The company states that it provides a baseline and path to the new ambient IoT standards that will revolutionize retailing.
Wiliot has joined forces with the largest technology and retail corporations globally to build an ambient IoT that links all products and packaging to the internet. This solution targets the most pressing issues plaguing the retail industry, namely omnichannel, sustainability, and food safety. The retail industry has taken note of the implications of these developments, and many of the largest retailers have already started to incorporate ambient IoT standards and technologies into their operations, with far-reaching effects.
Retail challenged like never before
“The retail industry is being challenged like never before,” stated Steve Statler, Wiliot’s CMO. “Supply chains are constrained; society is demanding greater carbon accountability; consumer shopping preferences are shifting; and governments are instituting new traceability regulations. To tackle these challenges, and to thrive in this new, more dynamic marketplace, retailers require an entirely new technology paradigm – the ambient IoT – that can deliver what’s never before been possible.”
Wiliot is at the forefront of the ultra-high volume, low-cost, battery-free sensor industry. It provides the most efficient way to take advantage of the developing ambient IoT standards through its IoT Data Platform. The platform is equipped with the company’s revolutionary IoT Pixels, which are small computing devices the size of a postage stamp, costing mere cents to produce. These pixels feature a major breakthrough in ambient computing technology, using self-powering methods that draw energy from the omnipresent radio waves in our environment.
Expanding the reach of ambient IoT beyond high ticket items
The battery-free IoT Pixels are not limited to connecting expensive items such as cars, appliances, and shipping containers to the internet. They can also be attached to any product or packaging, including fruits, vegetables, vaccine vials, clothes, crates, and virtually anything else. These devices enable products to transmit detailed item-level data about their location, temperature, carbon footprint, and other essential metrics to retailers. Armed with this high-definition real-time data, retailers can make informed, sustainable, and profitable decisions.
IoT Pixels allow retailers to monitor the carbon footprint of their entire supply chain in real-time, providing a viable alternative to the current annual reporting cycle that falls short of enabling retailers to make significant headway in reducing their carbon footprint. Additionally, retailers utilize IoT Pixels to produce traceability data, which the FDA will soon require under its Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The aim of this requirement is to safeguard public health by identifying and responding to food chain contamination.
Safer, fresher, locatable, sustainable
“With real-time tracking, instant traceability, and embedded intelligence, food is safer and fresher, carbon footprints can be tracked and managed, and pallets and cases don’t get lost,” continued Statler. “The ambient IoT is illuminating what was once in the dark by providing retailers with real-time high-definition visibility into the status of every product at every moment – and the implications for people, profits, and the planet are profound.”
Three complementary ambient IoT standards are now being defined by the Bluetooth SIG, IEEE, and the 3GPP (as part of what will be 5G Advanced). Wiliot is contributing and committed to supporting them all.
During Shoptalk Europe at Booth #D41, Wiliot will present the first-ever applications powered by ambient IoT technology. These applications are currently undergoing testing by some of the largest retailers globally and utilize data streamed from IoT Pixels to display the real-time location, traceability information, and carbon footprint of in-store inventory.
Presently, even the most advanced tracking systems provide an imperfect understanding of inventory location, which poses challenges for omnichannel and buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) retailing. However, these ambient IoT applications track inventory in real-time, providing retailers with complete visibility and enabling them to deliver on their omnichannel, food safety, and sustainability objectives more effectively.
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