Tag: interoperability

Extend the Intel® Retail Sensor Platform with Beacons

Posted on by Mark Scantlebury

The Intel® Retail Sensor Platform offers brick-and-mortar stores a compelling solution for revolutionizing inventory tracking, collecting in-depth intelligence on customer behavior and preferences, and dramatically reducing losses from misplaced items and inventory shrink. All this helps retailers deliver improved customer experiences and increase sales.

However, as an end-to-end Internet of Things (IoT) solution, there is more this platform can do to boost physical store success. As an example, let’s look at how adding a retail beacon solution from MobStac could extend this platform, helping physical stores track and engage customers on the sales floor.

The Intel® Retail Sensor Platform

The Intel Retail Sensor Platform provides a complete Internet of Things (IoT) platform for helping developers, solution providers, and system integrators quickly create and deploy retail solutions informed by analytics (Figure 1). This flexible, secure foundation enables better inventory tracking, faster time to insight from retail data, and new ways to increase customer satisfaction.

Figure 1. The Intel® Retail Sensor Platform provides a complete Internet of Things (IoT) platform for helping developers and system integrators quickly create and deploy retail solutions informed by analytics.

Early implementations focused on using RFID technology to track the movement and location of inventory, and relate it with other data to identify ways to increase sales and profitability. As described in this white paper, the inventory accuracy and management improvements achieved by the Intel Retail Sensor platform deliver the following benefits:

  • Lower inventory carrying costs
  • Fewer missed sales opportunities
  • Reduced inventory shrinkage
  • Optimized product placement
  • Increased sales associate effectiveness
  • Improved order fulfillment
  • Expanded customer services

The platform accomplishes all this by providing the ingredients to securely send RFID and other sensor data to the cloud for analysis by business-class applications. Key components include:

  • Retail IoT sensors to detect everything from inventory movement to customers in the store
  • IoT gateways for collecting sensor data and sending it to the cloud
  • Cloud and big data architecture to ingest and analyze retail data
  • External APIs to enable software developers to easily integrate innovative applications
  • Application software to perform retail functions such as inventory tracking, replenishment notifications, and insights on customer movements and consideration of specific items

Adding Beacons

Beacons are low-cost, low-powered transmitters equipped with wireless technology such as Bluetooth* Low Energy (BLE or also called Bluetooth 4.0 or Bluetooth Smart). In a retail store, a beacon communicates with a customer’s smartphone or tablet app to determine the customer’s location in a particular aisle or department and deliver context-aware messages.

Using beacons enables retailers to better know who is in their stores, where they spend the most time, and how effective in-store sales promotions are in drawing traffic. Beacons also give retailers the ability to entice customers to make immediate purchases through real-time coupons and other promotional techniques.

Consider these two examples:

  • A beacon communicating with a smartphone could identify what store section a customer just entered. If there is anything in that section that is on the customer’s shopping list or recent browser search history, the store could send a notification through the beacon (Figure 2).
  • A beacon could identify the in-store presence of a member of the retailer’s customer loyalty program and send a discount on a certain item based on past purchases or predicted interest.

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Figure 2. A beacon communicating with a smartphone could identify what store section a customer just entered and send a notification of something in that section that is on the customer’s shopping list.

Because the Intel Retail Sensor Platform architecture is based on an industry-standard, open-software platform, new functions and sensors, such as beacons, can be added to the platform any time. System integrators and developers can write applications to the external API and analytics engine to access sensor data from the gateway, cloud, or metadata.

The platform runs on private (on-premise) and public cloud infrastructures. It offers an open-source analytics platform-as-a-service (PaaS) for cloud applications (Figure 3). It can be extended and customized by solution providers, enabling solution providers such as MobStac to easily add their solution to the platform and expand it to include retail beacons and their analytics solution.

Figure 3. The Intel® Retail Sensor Platform offers an open-source analytics platform-as-a-service (PaaS) for cloud applications.

Advantages of MobStac

MobStac offers an end-to-end platform for businesses to engage customers in a personalized, context-aware way that leverages indoor location and proximity, using iBeacon and Wi-Fi* technology. MobStac’s proximity marketing and analytics platform, Beaconstac is a proximity marketing and analytics product using Bluetooth* Low Energy (BLE) beacon technology. With iBeacon (Apple technology) and Eddystone (Google technology) hardware, iOS and Android SDKs, and a cloud platform to manage everything in one place, Beaconstac provides a quick and easy way to increase customer engagement and gather useful analytics in physical spaces.

Retailers can use Beaconstac to send relevant offers to in-store customers, as well as gather and visualize data about who the customers are and how they engage with a specific physical store. For really large stores, Beaconstac can also enable indoor wayfinding to guide customers to products they want.

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Figure 4. MobStac Beaconstac helps retailers gather and visualize data about who their customers are and how they engage with a specific physical store.

Beaconstac’s beacons are fully secure, enterprise-ready solutions that can operate as long as four years with just AA batteries. Their iBeacon and Eddystone compatibility enables them to work with the vast majority of smartphones and tablets.

Beaconstac software includes campaign management tools for creating and managing proximity marketing campaigns. The iOS and Android SDKs make creating mobile apps offering customized beacon experiences easy. Developer documentation includes tutorials, technical information, and answers to frequently asked questions.

Getting Started

MobStac offers a Beaconstac starter kit that includes three enterprise-grade beacons, the Beaconstac app with SDKs for iOS and Android, and free access to a cloud-based proximity marketing and analytics console for 60 days (Figure 5). Purchasing the starter kit includes assistance from MobStac engineers in setting up a test location-based campaign.

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Figure 5. The Beaconstac starter kit includes three enterprise-grade beacons, the Beaconstac app with SDKs for iOS and Android, and free access to a cloud-based proximity marketing and analytics console for 60 days.

For help implementing Beaconstac on the Intel Retail Sensor Platform, retailers can turn to a complete list of solution integrators, analytics providers, and technology providers that can provide deployment assistance. See the list on this web page.

Step Up to Proximity Marketing

Adding a solution like MobStac’s Beaconstac to the Intel Retail Sensor Platform is a great way to extend the Intel Retail Sensor Platform and reap even more benefit from its ability to improve physical store operations and better compete with online-only merchants. To learn about other innovative retail solutions, visit the Solutions Directory.

IoT Middleware Delivers Web-Based Application Enablement

Posted on by Mark Scantlebury

A primary task for an IoT platform is the gathering of data from endpoint devices including sensors and the transmission of that data to cloud components for analysis. Since use cases can differ depending on the sensors and devices deployed, an IoT platform needs to be able to support third-party vendor (TPV) products for enabling specific end-to-end solutions.

In this post, we look at how Telit, a global IoT enabler, approaches end-to-end data flows on an IoT platform based on the Intel® IoT Platform reference architecture, their deviceWISE IoT Application Enablement Platform (AEP), and the Telit IoT Portal (Figure 1). In particular, we consider how this solution enables companies to deploy, configure and manage end-to-end IoT deployments from a single, cloud-based portal.

Figure 1. Telit’s deviceWISE architecture enables end-to-end data flow on an IoT platform.

The deviceWISE IoT Application Enablement Platform (AEP)

The deviceWISE IoT AEP is a turnkey secure and scalable technology platform available by license. It is backed by upfront customization and integration services, as well as ongoing technical maintenance and support. In Figure 2, you can see components of the deviceWISE IoT AEP and how they perform as middleware within an IoT platform structure based on Intel IoT Platform reference architecture.

Figure 2. This diagram shows where various Telit deviceWISE IoT AEP components fit into the Intel® IoT Platform reference architecture.

The Intel IoT Platform includes a set of reference architectures and a portfolio of products from Intel, members of the Intel® Internet of Things Solutions Alliance (such as Telit), and other ecosystem partners. The architectures provide blueprints specifying a comprehensive set of building blocks for seamlessly and securely connecting endpoint devices, delivering trusted data to the cloud, and delivering value through analytics.

Telit deviceWISE Asset Gateway software – included with deviceWISE IoT AEP – provides a critical component for collecting the data from edge devices (sensors, RFID tag readers, programmable logic controllers or PLCs, microcontrollers, etc.) within the Intel IoT Platform. This gateway software runs on IoT gateways such as those based on Intel® IoT Gateway Technology, a key building block component of the Intel IoT Platform product portfolio.

As part of the Asset Gateway software, Telit includes a deviceWISE Asset Gateway agent for Linux and Windows. This enables the Asset Gateway software to handle communications with various Telit components, collect and process data, and then send the processed data to the deviceWISE M2M service and/or enterprise applications. (The deviceWISE M2M Service is a hosted service that handles security, messaging, device management, and administration for applications.)

For devices lacking the necessary technology to be connected to an IoT gateway, Telit offers developers wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) IoT modules. Designing these into a device enables it to send and receive data over cellular, wireless, RF, ZigBee, or Sigfox networks, depending on the module (Figure 3). Telit also offers GNSS modules that make devices position/location-aware.

Figure 3. Telit offers M2M IoT modules that developers can design into their devices to enable various wireless technologies.

Telit IoT Portal

An innovative part of the deviceWISE IoT AEP is the Telit IoT Portal. This solution enables businesses to deploy, configure and manage end-to-end IoT deployments from a single cloud-based portal (Figure 4). The Telit IoT Portal solves the problem of having to go from one service provider portal to another and another to accomplish management tasks. Such a multi-portal process wastes time, can lead to errors, and can make it difficult to scale a solution and keep it manageable.

Engineered for a unified, streamlined experience, the Telit IoT Portal provides a command-and-control hub that makes it easy to connect things to applications. Using it, you can seamlessly integrate any endpoint device, production asset, or remote sensor with web-based and mobile applications and enterprise systems across any wireless network.

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Figure 4. The Telit IoT Portal provides a single cloud-based portal to deploy, configure and manage end-to-end IoT deployments.

The Telit IoT Portal’s management functionality addresses communication provisioning, including seamless integration with mobile network operators (MNO) and connected device platforms (CDP). Users can activate or de-activate devices, manage SIM cards, analyze connection quality, and set all provisioning and data plan parameters. This platform function is especially useful in preventing data overage and overall data cost management. The advanced CDP integration feature aggregates federated data across multiple wireless networks – a valuable capability when operating IoT deployments in different countries and regions around the world.

From the same portal, users have continuous access to all the comprehensive functions of the deviceWISE IoT AEP, including device onboarding, edge-intelligence, data collection, data transport, data storage, data delivery, and application integration. Developers can connect, collect, and control anything with a single, standardized API set that is common across device integration, connectivity management and application development.

The Telit IoT Portal reduces risk, time-to-market, and the complexity and cost of deploying solutions for monitoring and control, industrial automation, asset tracking, and field service operations across all industries and market segments. It makes an ideal window from which to work in an IoT implementation based on deviceWISE IoT AEP middleware running on an enterprise-wide IoT solution using the Intel IoT Platform architecture.

Enable and Manage an IoT Platform from the Web

Whether a business is just starting out or already operating thousands of remote devices across the globe, the deviceWISE Application Enablement Platform and Telit IoT Portal reduce steps. The Telit solutions make it easy to connect things to applications and manage them from a cloud-based web portal. For those looking for specific solutions for mobile network operators (MNOs) or manufacturing, Telit offers deviceWISE for MNOs and deviceWISE for Factory. There’s also a secureWISE for the semiconductor industry.

Developers looking for gateways to run Telit deviceWISE Asset Gateway software can find more than 50 gateway solutions based on Intel IoT Gateway Technology from Alliance members. You can also find other IoT cloud software solutions in the Alliance’s Solutions Directory.