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Oct 29, 2024

What if Your Strawberries Could Talk? – EEJournal

So, there I was, happily minding my own business, when my email system went “ping” and I looked up to see a message with a subject line saying, “What if Your Strawberries Could Talk? Now They Can!”

So, there I was, happily minding my own business, when my email system went “ping” and I looked up to see a message with a subject line saying, “What if Your Strawberries Could Talk? Now They Can!” Unfortunately, I was obliged to lose the “Now They Can!” part from my column title. This is because—as I’ve mentioned before—those who don the undergarments of authority and stride the corridors of power have forbidden me from terminating the titles to my columns with exclamation marks. This would leave “Now They Can” (without an exclamation mark) looking sad and dispirited (much like me, now I come to think about it).

Returning to the “What if Your Strawberries Could Talk?” question, I’m afraid that my initial knee-jerk reaction was to think of lots of squeaky voices trilling things like “please don’t eat us” or (on a somewhat happier note) “we would taste really good drizzled with chocolate and doused in lashings of whipped cream.”

I’m sorry. My mind wandered there for a moment (I haven’t had lunch yet). Where were we? Oh yes, I remember…

I think we’re all cognizant of the concept of radio-frequency identification (RFID). The idea is to attach RFID tags to things. When triggered by an electromagnetic interrogation pulse from a nearby RFID reader device, the tag transmits digital data (usually in the form of an identifying inventory number) back to the reader. This number can be used to track the location of the object to which the tag is attached.

There are two types of RFID tags: passive, which are cheap and cheerful, so you can attach them to anything, and active, which are powered by a battery giving them more range but making them bulkier and more expensive (plus you don’t want to be the one in charge of changing all the batteries).

The value of the RFID market is expected to rise to more than US$16 billion by 2029, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about here.

As I mentioned in one of my Cool Beans Blogs (see What the FAQ are the IoT, IIoT, IoHT, and AIoT?), according to the IoT Agenda, “The Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) is the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies with the Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure to achieve more efficient IoT operations, improve human-machine interactions, and enhance data management and analytics […] the AIoT is transformational and mutually beneficial for both types of technology as AI adds value to IoT through machine learning capabilities and IoT adds value to AI through connectivity, signaling, and data exchange.” I couldn’t have said it better myself, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about here.

Have you heard of the ambient IoT? According to the Wikipedia, this concept was originally coined by the 3GPP. It refers to an ecosystem of objects in which every item is connected into a wireless sensor network using low-cost self-powered sensor nodes. It seems that the Bluetooth SIG has assessed the total addressable market of the ambient IoT to be more than 10 trillion devices across different verticals.

The problem is that the AIoT moniker is taken, and the AmIoT nickname feels “clunky,” so I think we’re stuck with using “ambient IoT” until something better comes along.

All of which leads us to the fact that I was just chatting with Steve Statler (who is the Chief Marketing Officer) and Eric Casavant (who leads the Technical Marketing team) at a jolly interesting company called Wiliot.

The folks at Wiliot have developed something they call IoT Pixels, which are small (about the size of a large postage stamp), inexpensive tags that can be attached to any item. “So, is this just another RFID tag?” I hear you cry. “No! A thousand times no!” I reply. I’ll explain why in a moment, but first let’s see a few examples of Wiliot’s IoT Pixels roaming wild and free.

Wiliot at Shufersal Farm (Source: Wiliot)

Wiliot for pharma and healthcare (Source: Wiliot)

Wiliot for logistics (Source: Wiliot)

So, what makes Wiliot’s IoT Pixels stand proud in the crowd? Well, how about the fact that they boast a teeny-tiny quad 32-bit Arm processor (with associated ROM and RAM) and a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) transmitter. Even better, these are active tags that are powered by energy harvesting, pulling power from the sea of stray radio frequency (RF) signals in which we all swim.

The current generation of Wiliot’s IoT Pixels costs around 30 cents a pop and is equipped with a temperature sensor. Each IoT Pixel has a unique ID. Whenever an IoT Pixel has harvested sufficient energy—which could be anywhere from once a second in a high RF location to one every few minutes in a low RF environment—it wakes up, takes a reading, encrypts everything, and transmits it into the cloud.

Future generations of these IoT Pixels, which will cost only a few cents each, will boast additional sensors (humidity, ambient light…) and flaunt additional communications channels (WiFi, cellular…).

The folks at Wiliot are looking to a future in which billions, perhaps trillions, of ambient IoT devices are constantly hurling data into the cloud.

Now, you may be thinking that this all sounds… well, sort of “so-so soup” thus far. A mite “meh,” if you might make so bold. But that’s because I haven’t told you the good part yet. This is the part where your strawberries start to talk.

I’m talking about Wiliot’s WiliBot, which is a Generative AI (GenAI) chatbot that opens a portal between the physical world and artificial intelligence. WiliBot enables natural-language conversations with any ambient IoT-connected product.

The data collected by Wiliot’s IoT Pixels and stored in the cloud can be accessed by ambient data-enabled applications, such as supply chain management, warehouse management, and food traceability. WiliBot can analyze and use this data to answer important questions that will allow businesses and brands to streamline their operations and make any changes required to adhere to their sustainability goals. Look at this video to get a better idea of what I’m waffling about.

I don’t know about you, but my mind is now buzzing feverishly with thoughts relating to the myriad possibilities offered by the ambient IoT and exemplified by the combination of Wiliot’s IoT Pixels and the WiliBot chatbot. As always, I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on all of this.