DMR  |  2014-09-11

Motorola Solutions CTO sees “Intelligent” Retail Stores

Source: MCCResources

Motorola Solutions’ Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer Paul Steinberg wrote last month about the IoT and the future of retail. He said, “With the Internet of Things, stores will become intelligent.

By using sensors, video, RFID, precise location data, and analytic technologies, store managers will have visibility to everyone and everything within the store. This will enable the detection and capture of various ‘events’ and the transformation of these static and real-time events into actions that are mobilized—something we call ’capture, transform, and mobilize.’”

Steinberg listed as benefits:

  • “New levels of personalization for shoppers based on their known profiles, online shopping activities, and actions in the store”
  • Better-informed associates
  • A store that is “intelligent,” able to “track assets, people, and products, and provide a perpetual view of inventory and all important activities on the store floor and in the warehouse”

A Motorola Solutions video explores the role of Motorola wireless large area networks in a retail world embracing IoT. It points out that a WLAN can facilitate asset tracking, loss prevention, video management systems, electronic price labels, and energy management.

One IoT application that companies are already taking advantage of is vehicle location tracking, which requires the wide-area coverage made possible by solutions like Motorola’s MOTOTRBO Commercial Systems. These systems deliver simple, affordable voice and data communication with the option to buy monthly airtime service on a regional two-way radio network.

MOTOTRBO Connect Plus, meanwhile, accommodates high-volume, wide-area communication through multisite digital trunking. And MOTOTRBO Anywhere turns a wide area into an unlimited area by using the Internet to accomplish the sharing of voice and data applications, such as GPS location tracking.

Clearly, the Internet of Things will have a huge impact on the future of wireless. The key will be finding IoT solutions that solve real problems and having the infrastructure in place to make them work.