Kerlink Launches LoRaWAN Tracking Anchor for Smart-Retail

Kerlink, a specialist in solutions dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT), has launched a real-time, indoor asset-tracking-and-counting system that uses Wi-Fi or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).

Wanesy™ Wave is an indoor anchor that includes both Wi-Fi and BLE tracking technologies. It can detect and locate Wi-Fi devices (like smartphones), using their probe request (when the smartphone automatically requests a new Wi-Fi service to connect), and can also track Bluetooth-enabled devices or tags.

Once detected, it then transmits the data using a LoRaWAN® link to an industrial-grade LoRaWAN® gateway, such as a Kerlink Wirnet™ iFemtoCell. The gateway then transfers the information to any business-application server via Kerlink’s Wanesy Management Center, which operates and manages the end-to-end LoRaWAN® networks.

This anchor can notably be used in end-to-end solutions to enable retail shops, commercial malls or museums to count visitors, trace their movements and retrieve their customer journeys in stores and buildings, including the amount of time they spend in different areas, such as in front of product displays or masterpieces.

Deployed across factories, warehouses and service buildings such as hospitals, the system also helps improve management-and-operation efficiency by inexpensively enabling real-time location of devices, by tracking use of assets over a period of time or by getting instant inventory of tools or equipment in a given area.

Wanesy™ Wave also powers social-contact-tracing information to help to suppress the spread of Covid-19.

Combining Wi-Fi, BLE and LoRa® for this tracking-and-tracing solution is the perfect match to reach key expected capabilities: a relevant accuracy in an extended indoor range, a combination of area detection and various types of targets (fixed or mobile assets, people) and, of course, low energy consumption ensuring extended lifetime for battery-powered devices and tags.

The technology complements Kerlink’s existing outdoor asset-tracking offer, WanesyTM Geolocation, which allows asset locating and monitoring across large areas. That system is based on time-stamped signals from three or more LoRaWAN® gateways.

“WanesyTM Wave is the right set up for retail, industry, services and leisure verticals that want to quickly leverage a track-and-trace, industrial-grade solution to improve their operations,” said Kerlink Product Manager Guillaume Boisgontier. “Merchants and other small businesses can easily deploy this indoor and very low-energy tracking solution to better understand customer behavior, measure the effectiveness of displays and marketing campaigns, and manage inventory. Industrial sites and hospitals can quickly deploy a solution to geolocate and manage their critical assets to save time and reach a high level of efficiency. This product also underscores Kerlink’s expertise and continuing success at enabling innovative, essential IoT connectivity benefits for a variety of verticals and sectors, and it definitely completes our portfolio of smart solutions.”