The Mr. Beacon Ambient IoT Podcast

This episode we’re talking with Andy Ward, who is the Co-Founder and CTO of Ubisense, about various technologies from ultra wideband, to bluetooth, machine vision and many more, which his company utilizes within car manufacturing factories to automate the assembly line process.Listen as we discuss these various technologies, old and new, and how in combination they have the chance to change the manufacturing process from top to bottom. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we’ve brought on Tim Debus, who is the President and CEO of The Reusable Packaging Association, to talk about the various benefits businesses can realize when they turn to sustainable, reusable packaging. Tim’s focus is on transportation and distribution packaging (such as bins, crates, etc.), which is an area primed for disruption and improvement.Combined with auto-ID technology, reusable packaging is sure to change the supply chain industry as a whole, making the experience better (and more lucrative) for both buyers and sellers alike.  Enjoy this conversation as we cover everything from grocery stores, clothing supply chains, and the circular economy as a whole. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we’re talking about the circular economy and the process of making fashion more sustainable with auto-ID technology. We’ve brought on Tom Cridland, who is a fashion designer, podcaster, and musician who has created a new clothing line with a 30-year guarantee in order to promote more sustainability in the fashion and clothing space.We discuss the impact of auto-ID in the fashion industry, and how Bluetooth tags in clothing could be implemented to improve supply chains as well as creating a used market for clothing. We also hear Tom’s experiences with Elton John and his band, and what ultimately inspired him as a musician and fashion designer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this week's episode on branding in the IoT space, we have Adam Hanft on the show to share some of his strategic findings from working in the branding arena for the last several decades. Adam has a creative director background, working at many agencies as an advertiser, and has worked with the likes of Alan Kay ("If You See Something, Say Something"), and even Barack Obama with the "get out the vote" campaign.The truth is, there is no industry or category of business that can avoid the need for branding, and this includes IoT. So today, we discuss ideas ranging from "fast brain slow brain" to grading the IoT space when it comes to branding and messaging effectiveness. We talk about huge successes like Apple in creating amazing brands, and huge failures like the Sony Betamax. Showing how the best product doesn't always win and the advantage of having a powerful and effective brand. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we will hear a unique perspective. Our guest is from Minew, a Chinese company that has focused on the IoT field for more than a decade, both manufacturing their own products and acting as the hardware supplier for many other Bluetooth beacons and tag brands. They have seen the Bluetooth beacon market from its birth and have collaborated with many notable corporations, including Alibaba, Google, Here, and Huawei. Eason Huang joins us from China to discuss the demand for IoT today, where it is heading, and the opportunities and challenges that solution providers are facing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can you guess what the world's largest indoor location services platform is? Cisco’s DNA Spaces platform handles over 1 trillion location updates from 1 million access points deployed across 120,000 locations worldwide, so it is a serious contender for this title. The strategic implications of a giant like Cisco building a services platform like this impacts the entire ecosystem of customers and vendors that are in adjacent and overlapping spaces. This week we have the opportunity to get a look inside DNA Spaces with Product Manager Lucas Hanson. Tune in to learn how Cisco is digitizing physical spaces at an unprecedented scale and how you can harness the data from your existing Cisco wireless infrastructure to turn it into consumable insights and actionable business outcomes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every day, Kontakt.io’s products touch millions of people in shopping malls, office buildings, and hospitals. With devices in over 50 airports, it likely that many of us have departed and arrived at once equipped with Kontakt.io! This week we are excited to have Rom Eizenberg, Chief Revenue Officer and an industry veteran with 15+ years of experience in IoT, on the podcast. It has been three years since Kontakt.io’s last appearance on the podcast, and Rom is here to shed some light on what they have been up to and their achievements in the previous few years. Tune in to learn about their latest product, Portal Beam, and to hear Rom’s answer to the loaded question, ‘Has IoT been successful?’. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is the state of IoT on the high seas? What can those of us on dry land learn from the evolution of this business we all depend on? A lot has changed in the past year, and the shipping industry has been no stranger to the effects of COVID-19. Sam Jha joins us back on the podcast after his debut in 2017 to share how the shipping industry has been evolving and what Alpha Ori is doing to enable transparency, analytics and increase productivity. Join us this week to hear about Ship Operations 2.0 and how the Alpha Ori is digitizing the industry with software and sensors one ship at a time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you know the global language of business? The language of Unique Product Codes (UPCs) that identify products and companies for sale in stores and major online marketplaces? This language enables barcodes, playing to the beat of 6 million scans a day, all over the world. This week we sit down with Melanie Nuce, SVP Corporate Development at GS1 US, to learn why more than 300,000 companies across 25 industries turn to GS1 for guidance. GS1 is a not-for-profit global standards organization, most known for supply chain identification. 50 years after the barcode was first scanned, GS1 continues to help brands and retailers leverage unique identities, capture information in a machine-readable way, and share data with trading partners to drive business decisions. Tune in to get a behind-the-scenes look into business, and to learn all the things you need to know about GS1 and it’s standards.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the first time on the Mr. Beacon Podcast, we have put the rubber to the road and experimented with a solution internally before sitting down for the interview. This week, we are happy to welcome Nathan Dunn, CEO of BlueCats, back on the podcast to discuss the experience of deploying their contact tracing solution in our local Wiliot office. The BlueCats solution is both preventative and reactive in nature, by warning users to keep a safe distance while providing a tracing system to warn users of possible past exposure. Nathan calls the solution a ‘physical insurance policy’, enabling employees to feel more comfortable coming back into the work environment. Hear how our tests worked out and what Nathan’s latest observations are on the evolution and intersection of UWB & BLE. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.