Bluetooth Strikes Again

Bluetooth disrupts again

You know what we think about technology forecasts if you've spent any time with our posts. Not a favorite activity of ours, but definitely an essential one.

So here we are, forecasting Bluetooth as the next big thing.

Wait! What?

That's right. Bluetooth, that ubiquitous ambient signal that connects your headphone to your smart phone, is the new disrupter. Or, it could be.

The global supply chain is heavily dependent on technologies to track, measure, monitor and report. The logistics industry has gained great efficiencies through devices like RFID, permitting remarkably fast aggregation of movement and state across entire warehouses of product at a low cost. RFID has been around since the 1990's, and the only complaint we hear is that signal capture requires specialized instruments. Not very customer friendly. And it is a little expensive.

But consumer tech is heavily dependent on Bluetooth. Everything from speakers to lightbulbs and door locks to thermostats can be paired with your smart phone and controlled through an app. Apple saw the great potential of the Bluetooth standard, first introduced in 2010, and published their own protocol called iBeacon in 2013. Google quickly followed with Eddystone in 2015. The rest is history -- sort of.

While the ambient signal industry (if we can call it that) has delivered startling innovation with connecting consumers to products, it has not been as successful in connecting consumers and products to process. In other words, the tech works when listening to music through wireless earbuds, but not as useful when listening for a new product on a store shelf. Bluetooth is the ubiquitous consumer standard for wireless. but much work remains before Bluetooth disrupts critical business processes like order to cash, procure to pay, demand chains and supply chains.

But the disruption is coming. While location-based services through Beacons from Apple, Google and a host of other vendors have failed to gained traction in any meaningful way, continued advancements in low cost, no battery product tags have made feasible a range of new use cases. These use cases are addressing critical business processes, and bridging the gap among product, process and consumers in exciting ways. Products messaging customers, sharing recipes, signaling freshness, and shipping themselves are only the start. Advertising takes on whole new dimensions with products making offers. Payment systems are transformed at the point-of-sale. The flexible, no battery, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) product tags will be produced at scale - some day. Tag costs will become more affordable over time. Pilots are in motion. The 'state of the bluetooth tag' still feels like 'alpha testing' to us, but we all know how quickly things can suddenly move.

So, if doing some 'future casting', take time to think through how ambient signals may disrupt your competition and serve your customers more intensively. And of course, factor in how AI will be a critical part of the process -- with millions of event signals needing to be processed real-time. Let's connect and envision the future together.