6G Ambient IoT Opportunity: Antidote to Supply Chain & Climate Crises? Webinar Q&A

Please find a recording of the webinar here. 

 

Question: Is the IoT chip manufacturing done in-house? 

Answer: Wiliot is a fabless semiconductor company, so we use a 3rd party fab to make the chips that “power” our ambient IoT Pixels

 

Question: Does ambient IoT have positioning and localization capability?

Answer: Ambient IoT can provide positioning and localization abilities in addition to sensing (temperature, fill-level, humidity, etc.).  This positioning/localization capability can take the form of presence (is the item ‘here’ or ‘not here’) or zonal location inside a warehouse, distribution center, or store.

 

Question: Is ambient IoT based on Bluetooth?

Answer: To become a pervasive and low-cost solution to truly become the ‘internet of every single thing’ (not just expensive things) Ambient IoT requires the use of a low-power, inexpensive, pervasively available connection protocol. Today Bluetooth Low Energy is the prime candidate for fulfilling these requirements.

 

Question: Could ambient IoT devices connect NTN (Non-Terrestrial networks)?

Answer R: Yes, satellite networks can be used as gateway connections between a Works with Wiliot Bridge and the cloud.

 

Question: Can the pixels be energized without the Wiliot hubs?

Answer: Yes, depending upon the RF environment in which the pixels are located, there may be sufficient RF energy present to energize the pixels for reliable operation.  With our current version (V2) this is more the exception than the rule.  V3, coming at the end of 2023 – this will become more common. Many different types of hubs/energizers are available to supplement the existing RF energy in the environment surrounding the pixels.

 

Question: Would Ambient IoT stickers be a connected alternative to RFID tags?

Answer:Yes, Wiliot’s Ambient IoT stickers can provide a very compelling alternative to traditional passive RFID tags.  Their ability to communicate via an encrypted wireless signal, as well as their ability to be powered by small inexpensive hubs/energizers (vis a vis large expensive passive RFID readers), their unique serialization, their ability to be read by smart phones (I.e. Bluetooth) are a few of the numerous advantages over traditional passive RFID tags.

 

Question: What ability to capture and store data if the tag is not able to connect to send location/temp/humidity/etc.  IE is there an ability to send a history of captured data during an air flight or similar movement?

R: The Wiliot pixel was designed to be very low power, inexpensive to manufacture, and easy to produce in very high volumes.  On-chip (or onboard) data storage was not part of these design criteria because of its additional power requirements, cost and complexity.  However, because of the nature of the pervasiveness of WiFi, 4G/5G, and other connectivity protocols that can be easily ‘fed’ by Wiliot BLE data, only very few environments are ‘unconnectable’.

Where this is the case a gateway device can store and forward the data received from the tags while the wide area network is down once the connectivity is restored.

 

Question: Could you advise me of potentially good fit use cases of ambient IoT other than supply chain?

Answer: There are many; some of which may (or may not) be pertinent to the supply chain.  Location awareness of assets inside a facility (medical assets inside a hospital, mobile tools inside a factory, location of mobile WIP inside a manufacturing facility, temperature monitoring of critical components in certain manufacturing processes, etc.)

 

Question: How strong (RSSI) must the signal be in order to power Wiliot tags?

Answer: When harvesting from Bluetooth +20 dBm is required toachieve a 2-meter range, lower energy sources will result is a shorter range.

 

Question: How much does Wiliot utilize ARM chip?

Answer: The ARM processor works alongside 2 other proprietary specialist processors that Wiliot has designed and incorporated in its IoT Pixel Chip.  The ARM processor allows the operation of the MCU to be programable by Wiliot engineers so that its behavior can be modified by more easily.

 

 

Question: Given the timeline shared earlier (protocols), how long do you think it will take the Pixel to get to a $0.05/tag or lower cost, approaching where RFID is typically today?

Answer: At ever-increasing manufacturing volumes, Pixel costs will continue to decline.   There are design choices that can be made to significantly cut costs beyond those discussed but the use case and requirements need to be defined in order to get to a specific number and timeframe.

However, when comparing costs with RFID (or other systems), it is important to consider TOTAL cost of the system.  This includes the cost of readers, cost of software integration, and hardware deployment costs, not just the cost of tags.  In many situations today, even with the existing cost of the pixel—it is the lowest-cost solution for a number of use cases.  

 

Question: Might the pixels ever communicate amongst themselves, programmatically or otherwise, going forward before reaching the bridge or the gateway? My impression now is that they do not today but that would be a great feature in the future.

Answer: Today Pixels do not communicate amongst themselves, but they could do in future generations.  It would be interesting to discuss the requirement for such functionality.  

 

Question: Given the timeline shared earlier (protocols), how long do you think it will take the Pixel to get to a $0.05/tag or lower cost, approaching where RFID is typically today?

Answer: At ever-increasing manufacturing volumes, Pixel costs will continue to decline.   However, when comparing costs with RFID (or other systems), it is important to consider TOTAL cost of the system.  This includes the cost of readers, cost of software integration, and hardware deployment costs, not just the cost of tags.  In many situations today, even with the existing cost of the pixel—it is the lowest cost solution for a number of use cases.

 

Question: Steve - can the processor on the chip be programmed to transmit as a combination of time based or on exception conditions?just trying to sense on the best strategy to optimizethe  data collection and storage

Answer: Today the processor on the chip cannot be externally programmed/changed.  However, The time interval of the data received (once per minute, once per hour, etc.) can be programmed/configured via the bridges, which are cloud connected and thus API programmable.

 

Question: Hi Steve. Can You skip Wiliot cloud and send data directly from gateway to your own cloud for processing?  Or wiliot cloud is part of your business model ( u charge based on data/number of tags in use? ).

Answer: The Wiliot cloud is a necessary component for any Wiliot pixel solution.  It contains the intelligence for being able to de-encrypt the data packets, as well as deal with the aggregate data volumes that can result from tens or hundreds of thousands of pixels transmitting simultaneously.  The Wiliot cloud is central to Wiliot’s SAAS business model.

 

Question: Does the tag/pixel work on metal surfaces?

Answer: When used on metal, a ‘spacer’ made of cardboard, or some other non-metallic substance is required.

 

Question: Do you use MEC (Mobile Edge Computing) in your solution?

Answer: Standard smartphones (with BLE capabilities) can be a Mobile Edge compute device for the Wiliot solution.  Pixels transmit encrypted beacon packets to a smart phone which then transmit the packets to the Wiliot cloud for de-encryption and API access of the resulting data for other enterprise systems.

 

Question: Do we need to have Bridge/Reader nearby IoT Pixel, like 2m or 50m range, when IoT Pixel does sensing and localization?

Answer: When considering distance placements for hardware it is important to be clear on the distance for ‘energizing’ and the distance for receipt of the pixel message.  In general, the pixel transmission can be heard within ~10-15 m radius, although the radius for energizing the pixels can be up to 10 –15 m.  Bridges can relay the pixel message to distances of ~ 50 m or more, enabling very large areas to be covered with minimum infrastructure.  

 

Question: Do you include carbon foot printing caused by introducing Wiliot’s solution in calculating? Or can we ignore it since it’s small enough?

Answer: We are embarking on an LCA calculation of the carbon footprint of the IoT Pixel and cloud processing so it can be factored in, but it is not expected to be material since it is so small.

 

Question: The data are sent via BLE beacon packets?

Answer:  Yes, Wiliot pixels transmit an encrypted BLE data packet.

 

Question: Would ambient IoT be used for industry track WIP, track inhouse product warehouse & incoming raw materials

Question: Yes, depending upon the specifics of the use case, Ambient IoT can be used for tracking WIP inside of factories, tracking assets inside of a hospital, or tracking supplies or incoming raw materials.  In addition, Ambient IoT can also track temperature when temperature control/monitoring is important.