What do airplanes, space rockets and advanced car manufacturing plants have in common? They are all critical operations where any disruption would be costly, and they all rely on optical wireless communication.
These tough environments with lots of metal barriers would not be a good setting for other technologies like WiFi. The same goes for retail stores, where for instance the WiFi spectrum is struggling in an overcrowded space.
The digitalisation of retail stores demands infrastructure that is fast, reliable, and flexible. The increased consumer demand for services such as click & collect, has also strengthened the need for technology that can scale and update in real-time across all stores.
Delaying updates or campaigns due to technology limitations or overcrowded bandwidth in stores would hamper your competitiveness and customer experience. That is why more and more retailers are reassessing the technology they are using across stores.
Progressive retail chains need reliability and scalability to further digitalize stores, and the core technology choices they make could either strengthen or seriously limit these plans. For a growing number of retailers this means using optical wireless communication as the core of their in-store digitalization.
Pricer offers optical wireless communication that enables wireless connectivity using near-infrared band. It is a very powerful wireless technology that offers high bandwidth, minimum latency and low cost. While it was limited to military operations in the past, it is now open to commercial use. It is robust, scalable and perfectly fitting for the retail space.
It is easy to understand why the technology is a popular choice for retailers. It does not require line-of-sight and it can handle any type of other light situation such as sunlight, moonlight, LEDs or other sources, and still perform outstandingly in any environment.
Retailers also appreciate that it does not overlap with commonly used wireless devices that use other ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as radio waves, microwaves, visible light or ultraviolet light.
Retailers need strong technology at the core to be able to connect products, assets, people, and processes. It is the foundation for successful rollout of IoT, mobile, cloud, social and data/analytics across stores.
Nowadays you do not need to be a rocket scientist or go to the moon to appreciate how optical wireless communication is enabling a new era of real-time, automation and customer experience.
Published: June 3, 2021
