Wiliot has announced it has achieved the breakthrough ability to sense and analyse humidity levels of individual products, in real-time, throughout the supply chain.
By adding humidity sensing to the company’s Visibility Platform-on top of Wiliot’s existing temperature, location, and carbon emissions sensing capabilities-Wiliot has made it possible for companies to better ensure the safety, integrity, freshness, and sustainability of moisture-sensitive products – end-to-end and at unprecedented scale.
Wiliot’s ability to enable continuous monitoring down to the product level is unlike any traceability technology available today.
“This is a game-changing technology achievement for supply chain visibility,” said Wiliot VP of Data Products & Algorithms, Thaddeus Segura. “By adding humidity sensing to the Wiliot Visibility Platform, we are transforming the handling of products we all consume and depend on. Now companies can deliver impeccable quality to their customers while promoting sustainability and responsible resource utilisation.”
The Wiliot Visibility Platform connects the digital and physical worlds through the Wiliot Cloud and Wiliot IoT Pixels, which are low-cost, self-powered, mass-manufactured postage stamp-sized compute devices affixed to products and packaging.
IoT Pixels continuously and automatically transmit data to the Wiliot Cloud via standard Bluetooth devices, greatly reducing the staffing and operational cost of traditional tracking methodologies, while also reducing error rates, waste, mis-shipments, mis-picks and out-of-stocks.
By using the latest technology to efficiently connect any item to the Internet and embedding it with intelligence and awareness, companies can create more efficient, profitable, and sustainable supply chains.
With this latest launch, Wiliot engineers have now introduced to IoT Pixels a tiny membrane that detects humidity in the air. When an IoT Pixel is exposed to different humidity levels, the information is relayed wirelessly to the Wiliot Cloud. In the cloud, this humidity data is combined with temperature and location data to generate insights and timely alerts for staff that can better optimise supply chain operations.
“Based on this new humidity data, companies can now track, in real-time, the relative impact of environmental conditions on moisture-sensitive products – to improve their freshness, quality, safety, and integrity,” Segura continued. “Food retailers can apply freshness insights to their operations to ensure the freshest, ripest products are sold first, while healthcare companies can monitor the safe handling and storage of medicines and health commodities. The Wiliot Visibility Platform gives businesses an entirely new level of insight into their supply chains.”
Products, from produce to pharmaceuticals, have different humidity handling requirements. The Wiliot Visibility Platform helps ensure compliance from producer to distributor to retailer to pharmacy, delivering significant benefits for companies and consumers. Produce stays fresher longer, reducing the amount wasted due to rot and spoil; medicines, which must be stored at specific temperatures and humidity levels, stay safe; and vaccines, which require precise handling and environmental conditions to deliver their intended health benefits, remain effective.
“Wiliot, and the ambient IoT, are changing the way the world operates – helping businesses transition to fully automated, completely transparent, and increasingly sustainable supply chains,” concluded Segura. “Now, with humidity sensing added to our platform, we’re establishing a new baseline for product freshness, quality, and safety – which will pay significant dividends for businesses and consumers alike.”
Wiliot is currently working with many of the world’s largest companies across retail, logistics, apparel, CPG, and pharmaceuticals on a variety of ambient IoT projects.
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