Walmart To Deploy Sensors To Track 90 Million Grocery Pallets by Next Year
- Reference: 0179631888
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/10/02/180240/walmart-to-deploy-sensors-to-track-90-million-grocery-pallets-by-next-year
- Source link:
The microchips measure 0.7 square millimeters and are embedded in shipping labels. They use Bluetooth to transmit real-time data about pallets. Walmart previously relied on manual scanning and paper checks by employees. The Arkansas-based company employs 2.1 million people but increased revenues by $150 billion over five years without adding workers. Walmart accounts for more than a fifth of US grocery sales.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/3bc2afe8-aaed-4224-a0b9-7a0e2e5dd603
[2] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/industry/walmart-wiliot-go-large-on-ambient-iot/
Trying wine 2003 (Score:2)
Walmart's been trying to get suppliers to RFID stuff since their 2003 RFID mandate, which demanded suppliers tag pallets and cases by 2005, but s pretty much failed out of the gate due to exorbitant tag costs, unreliable technology, and supplier pushback, resulting in only partial compliance and a scaled-back approach by 2006. They really pushed for UHF EPC backscatter tag standardisation. But UHF is PITA. It can reflect off surfaces, not penetrate to cartons inside pallets with metal and water.
But.. they k
Re: (Score:2)
> using a small antenna and efficient rectifier, capturing 2.5-50 W in retail environments to charge a capacitor for brief BLE transmissions that consume ~9 J per packet
The units on 2.5–50 W must be wrong. 50 watt is impossibly high for a device, reportedly 0.7 square millimetres, to capture. That an irradiant flux of 70 megawatt per square metre, or over 50,000x the peak solar insolation above the atmosphere.
Re:Trying since 2003 (Score:2)
Yep sorry. I should stop trying to type on an ipad in bed!
The title should be Trying since 2003, and power obviously should be uW!
Oh slashdot, the ability to edit posts in 2025.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay thanks. Yeah 50 microwatt makes sense, especially if the 0.7 sq mm is only the microchip and the sensor with antenna is much larger (another poster reported it being postage stamp size).
Active Bluetooth transmission 0.7 sq mm? (Score:2)
0.7 square millimetres for active transmission via Bluetooth? Seems pretty amazingly small. Even for passive RFID device, 0.7 square millimetres is pretty small isn’t it?
Re: (Score:2)
> 3GPP stated ambient IoT devices can gather energy from sources including "electromagnetic, thermal and solar", and operate with "limited energy storage capacity".
What do you want to bet in practice they get all their energy from electromagnetic, and how they get it is being targeted by an RF-emitting reader every time they are read.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah I imagine they are passive and lack battery, and use RFID-style activation energised by the reader. Similar to contactless credit cards, public transport cards etc. The 0.7 sq mm figure also does not appear in the non-paywalled article or any others I can find. I wonder if it has been incorrectly converted. For example, perhaps they are actually 0.07 square centimetres, which is 7 sq mm.
Re: (Score:1)
It would have been amazing, but the paywalled article is saying "The devices — MADE WITH microchips 0.7 square millimetres in size — are embedded in shipping labels stuck to the shrink-wrapped bundles of items trucked from warehouses to stores" So no mention of the actual tracking device's size.
Re: (Score:1)
Wiliot website suggests device is actually about size of postage stamp. I suspect "0.7 sqare mm" is typo/transcription error.
Re: Active Bluetooth transmission 0.7 sq mm? (Score:1)
The company's website describes the stickers as "postage stamp sized", which appears to include the energy harvesting and darts transmitting antenna structure. 0.7 mm2 is likely the size of the chip itself.