Wiliot is pioneering the future of IoT with its groundbreaking IoT Pixels, utilizing Bluetooth and RFID technologies to automate visibility across supply chains. This innovation promises to enhance operational efficiency and sustainability by eliminating manual scanning and supporting reusable packaging initiatives. Positioned at the intersection of digital and physical realms, Wiliot’s advancements are poised to redefine industry standards and drive profound changes in how businesses manage and track their assets.
To learn more, I interviewed Stephen Statler, Chief Marketing Officer at Wiliot.
Fujio: What sets Wiliot apart from its competitors?
Statler: Wiliot’s IoT Pixels offer a new evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT), ambient IoT, a cloud service, paired to a unique Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID) or Bluetooth smart tag. What makes Wiliot’s offering so unique is that it is able to deliver on the original IoT vision of visibility – from warehouse to storefront even into the home. It does this in a way that is completely automated, without requiring the manual scanning that went with the first generation of RFID.
Additionally, because Bluetooth radios are produced in their billions, and are in most everyday items, Wiliot is able to build and deliver what RFID started delivering, but at a lower capital cost, without the need for $10,000 + readers – thus enabling real time, end to end visibility to trillions of things, and not just expensive things. These smaller ticket items such as clothing and food have a very large impact on the environment, and enabling traceability within them not only increases quality, but mitigates waste and supports circular clothing models through DPPs (Digital Product Passports).
Can Wiliot’s battery-free IoT Pixels be reused and or recycled? Or are they considered single-use?
Wiliot’s IoT Pixels are low cost enough that they can be attached to and track higher cost items, thus reducing the kind of mistake that results in waste and loss, but because they’re battery free and can be embedded in plastic or cardboard – they can also be used multiple times and have the same lifetime as the product it’s embedded to.
Whatsmore, not only can the tags themselves be reused, but they’ll also improve the sustainability in the items they’re embedded in. As sustainable reusable packaging is expensive, tends to get lost and is hard to track, it’s not typically seen as a viable solution for sustainability. With the introduction of Wiliot’s IoT Pixels, companies are able to pragmatically implement reusable packaging and mitigate the typical roadblocks. When reusable packaging can be tracked, the cost of shrink attributed to theft or loss goes down.
Wiliot’s Pixels also provide visibility into the items that are inside the packaging, giving manufacturers a better understanding of accurate inventory levels, meaning they won’t overproduce items. By giving manufacturers the ability to only produce as much as is needed, Wiliot’s IoT Pixels are aligning profits, people and the planet.
How do you pitch to clients about the benefits of Wiliot’s ambient IoT? Are clients usually more interested in potential profitability as opposed to sustainability?
As individuals work for Wiliot, many of us here are driven by the opportunity to make huge systemic breakthroughs in sustainability using this new ambient IoT technology, but pragmatically, this isn’t what gets customers to buy. To Wiliot’s customers, the sustainability benefits that our technology offers is certainly a plus, it generates real excitement, but it’s not what’s driving them toward adoption – they need to show their stakeholders that investing in IoT can help their bottom line, so customers are most interested in the profitability and ROI, which Wiliot’s tech can provide.
Historically, sustainability managers are drawn to Wiliot for the sustainability aspect, but require the buy-in of the finance and operations teams to drive revenue through adoption. This can happen through Wiliot’s core mission – which is to ensure people, profits and the planet are all aligned.
Do you envision a future where all major companies are utilizing ambient IoT? What is currently holding back this revolution?
The adoption of the ambient IoT is not only good for the environment, but good for profits as well. For this reason, we believe that eventually all major companies will be utilizing the tech – it’s required to survive in today’s competitive landscape. If companies are able to reduce waste, cost, improve the supply chain, and give customers the visibility they crave, they’ll be equipped with the tools they need to win market share.
In addition to that, there is a rising tide of government-mandated compliance requirements surrounding product visibility, such as the FDA’s food traceability FSMA Rule 204 and the European DPP regulations, meaning that the adoption of tech that connects physical and digital worlds is on a consistent uptick.
While market position and regulatory standards will be driving forces for mass ambient IoT adoption, the rise of AI is another factor. By connecting trillions of physical things digitally, the ambient IoT has the ability to unlock a world of content that AI is hungry for. With this in mind, the benefits of the ambient IoT are seemingly endless, but adoption will take time.
We’re seeing some of the first adoption happening in food – where safety, waste, and labor issues can all be addressed with the ambient IoT. Another area is apparel, where companies are not only seeing the value in driving sustainability efforts with the technology, but also the ability to create compelling physical world shopping experiences to compete with those online. Logistics is another area where we see quick adoption. Postal services are having to reinvent themselves to survive.
There are a few barriers to entry, the largest being the knowledge required to design and implement real-time visibility systems, plus, and the time it takes to build the new inventory visibility systems that are at the core of how companies operate. Not only do new business models need to adjust, but new apps need to be written for mass adoption to take off. That being said, we aren’t debating if this full digital and physical convergence will happen – but when.
All images in this article are courtesy of Wiliot.
