Australia’s Academy Brand clothing retailer has become the second retailer to deploy IoT Pixel wirelessly powered RF smart tags from Flagship. The tags are a result of a collaboration between retail tech developer Flagship and wireless RF charging specialist Energous.

Wiliot IoT Pixels are battery-free, active Bluetooth smart tags that can be attached to almost anything and at a low cost. In the Academy Brand deployment, the Wiliot tags are wirelessly powered by multiple Energous WattUp PowerBridges. Academy Brand is using them to capture information such as stock integrity (in-store inventory location) as well as purchases.

The tags help Academy Brand understand in-store consumer behaviour and provide actionable insights related to inventory counts, loss prevention, fitting room sessions, replenishment requirements and floor merchandising.

“We were originally working with solutions that featured battery-powered BLE tags, however, Wiliot has uncovered both a cost and operational benefit that couldn’t quite be achieved with the battery-powered tags. Once we understood the level of sophistication that Energous’ wireless power transmitters and the Wiliot IoT Pixels provided, we knew this was what we were looking for,” said Simon Molnar, founder & CEO of Flagship. “This partnership supports Flagship’s mission to bring brick-and-mortar retail into the digital world. Providing retail tags and connected devices with a reliable source of power is instrumental to enabling the smart store of tomorrow, and we’re proud to now have multiple pilot deployments with Energous and Flagship’s technologies.”

“It’s very exciting to see the momentum growing behind this new generation of retail systems using Wiliot technology to unlock a real-time view of what’s going on in the physical store. When you can improve efficiency and enhance the shopping experience at the same time, it’s clear that eventually all stores will be run this way,” said Steve Statler SVP at Wiliot. “Flagship and Energous are great examples of how our partners’ expertise is enabling best-of-breed solutions for brands that want to use cutting edge technology to thrive.”

Capable of powering multiple devices simultaneously at-a-distance, WattUp PowerBridge transmitters from Energous send power to, and can act as a data link for, connected IoT devices such as sensors, Electronic Shelf Labels, trackers, IoT tags, batteryless devices and more. Multiple WattUp PowerBridge transmitters create a WattUp Wireless Power Network capable of covering unlimited distances for large footprint deployments such as retail stores, industrial warehouses, manufacturing plants, logistics hubs and more. The WattUp Wireless Power Network is designed to provide consistent levels of power for IoT devices, while eliminating the costly need to manage and replace batteries or rely on restrictive wires and cables.