How COVID-19 Changed
the Way Location Services
Solutions Are Implemented

Can you talk more about a specific project your company has recently delivered or is currently working on that showcases the long-term benefits of implementing Bluetooth Location Services solutions?

In 2020, we started working with PostNL to help them digitize their internal roll-cage supply chain. By digitally quantifying the journey of a unique loading device (ULD), also known as a roll cage, we were able to provide better resolution in the tracking of a parcel’s journey and improve the quality of the information gathered at each step of the logistics chain. So far, PostNL has digitized 250,000 roll cages with Kontakt.io Bluetooth^® beacons. PostNL is now able to track the location of the load unit since it is associated with the truck or facility where it was delivered. Roll-cage journeys between customers and depots can now be planned more efficiently. The critical decision PostNL took was to select Bluetooth Low Energy as the wireless standard. This made it possible for them to select best-in-breed vendors to deliver the required components united by a common language.

We will cover this project in detail during our webinar on 24 June 2021 with Sander Heije, product owner of IoT at PostNL. In this webinar, we will discuss how PostNL benefited from Bluetooth Location Services solutions and their path forward with Bluetooth IoT devices.

Why should technical decision-makers and product managers choose Bluetooth technology for their infrastructure?

Considering the IoT solution stack, one may identify three clear layers of technology interconnected together:

• • IoT edge devices – from employee badges to patient wristband connected bracelets, asset tags, or room temperature sensors – all making up (typically) battery-powered, low-cost edge devices
  • An infrastructure supporting localization of tags and phones as well as the aggregation of sensor data from the edge to the cloud application
  • Software, covering the spectrum from IoT device management to data APIs to use case and sometimes vertical-specific applications across use cases

Of these three, it is the infrastructure that is the problem child of IoT. Or perhaps it’s better to say was the problem child of IoT.

With Bluetooth^® enabled gateways in place, and cloud technology available as standard, companies can go from paper and pencil to completely automated and hands-free quantified workflows (or buildings) almost overnight. It is the costly wiring and cable pulling that makes IoT beyond reach, driven by proprietary readers and custom solutions.

Recent announcements by network infrastructure vendors include Cisco’s Q4-20 news around their DNA-Spaces cloud and access point support for Bluetooth gateway in all-new Wi-Fi 6 access points. This trend allows technology leaders to leverage multiple strategic advantages, among them:

• • A standard driven solution
  • Solving for today’s use cases but keeping flexibility for the future
  • Extracting building data from information silos, allowing IT to play a pivotal role in enabling future lines of business needs
  • Cross-funding much-needed network upgrades with OT initiatives, unlocking not just lower cost of ownership but strong returns over network investment

We believe that Bluetooth technology plays a critical part in IoT enablement and delivers a unique value proposition that makes it a choice for the majority of location and IoT services: open standards, low energy, low cost, widely adopted, scalable, etc.

Bluetooth^® technology also enables another important business metric — scalability. When a Bluetooth powered project is deployed, the option to scale it, almost infinitely, remains available using the same basic infrastructure, creating opportunities for savings while keeping up with business needs. It’s just much more than standard infrastructure, it’s an infrastructure that lets your business scale at almost no additional cost.