Wiliot to Debut Real-Time Humidity Sensing

Wiliot announced it has achieved the ability to sense and analyze humidity levels of grocery products, in real-time, throughout the supply chain.

Wiliot will debut its humidity sensing technology and demonstrate the Wiliot Visibility Platform at Groceryshop 2023, Sept. 19-21, held at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, at Wiliot’s booth.

Yaron Elboim, Wiliot co-founder and COO, will speak about ambient IoT, humidity sensing, and FSMA compliance on Wednesday, Sept. 20, at 9:35 a.m. as part of the Groceryshop panel session “Technologies Strengthening the Supply Chain.”

By adding humidity sensing to the company’s Visibility Platform—on top of Wiliot’s existing temperature, location, and carbon emissions sensing capabilities—Wiliot has made it possible for grocers, retailers, food distributors, and CPG brands to better ensure the safety, integrity, freshness, and sustainability of moisture-sensitive products end-to-end and at unprecedented scale.

Wiliot’s ability to enable continuous monitoring down to the product level is unlike any traceability technology available today, positioning it to help companies comply with new U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) safe tracking rules.

“This is a game-changing technology achievement for supply chain visibility, and we consider Groceryshop 2023 the perfect place to share it with our many partners and other industry participants,” said Thaddeus Segura, Wiliot VP of data products & algorithms. “By adding humidity sensing to the Wiliot Visibility Platform, we are transforming the handling of products we all consume and depend on.”

The Wiliot Visibility Platform connects the digital and physical worlds through the Wiliot Cloud and Wiliot IoT Pixels, which are low-cost, self-powered, mass-manufactured postage stamp-sized compute devices affixed to products and packaging.

IoT Pixels continuously and automatically transmit data to the Wiliot Cloud via standard Bluetooth devices, greatly reducing the staffing and operational cost of traditional tracking methodologies, while also reducing error rates, waste, mis-shipments, mis-picks, and out-of-stocks.

With this latest launch, Wiliot engineers have now introduced to IoT Pixels a tiny membrane that detects humidity in the air. When an IoT Pixel is exposed to different humidity levels, the information is relayed wirelessly to the Wiliot Cloud. In the cloud, this humidity data is combined with temperature and location data to generate insights and timely alerts for staff that can better optimize supply chain operations.

“Based on this new humidity data, companies can now track, in real-time, the relative impact of environmental conditions on moisture-sensitive products – to improve their freshness, quality, safety, and integrity,” Segura continued. “Food retailers can apply freshness insights to their operations to ensure the freshest, ripest products are sold first, while healthcare companies can monitor the safe handling and storage of medicines and health commodities. The Wiliot Visibility Platform gives businesses an entirely new level of insight into their supply chains.”

Products, from produce to pharmaceuticals, have different humidity handling requirements. The Wiliot Visibility Platform helps ensure compliance from producer to distributor to retailer to pharmacy, delivering significant benefits for companies and consumers.

Produce stays fresher longer, reducing the amount wasted due to rot and spoil; medicines, which must be stored at specific temperatures and humidity levels, stay safe; and vaccines, which require precise handling and environmental conditions to deliver their intended health benefits, remain effective.