SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mist Systems, a Juniper Networks company and a leader in secure AI-driven networks, announced today new ecosystem partner integrations that leverage ultra-wideband, Wi-Fi radar (sensing), LiDAR, Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL) and batteryless Bluetooth LE tags to deliver advanced use cases for indoor location with high accuracy and exceptional scale.
“We are excited to build on the previous success of our location solution, including placement as a visionary in the recently announced 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Indoor Location Services, with new use cases that leverage state-of-the-art ultra-wideband, Wi-Fi, LiDAR, ESL and Bluetooth LE technologies,” said Bob Friday, CTO of Mist Systems. “It takes a robust ecosystem to bring indoor location to stores, hotels, hospitals, campuses and other AI-driven enterprises, so we are excited to be working with the best vendors in the industry to make this a reality.”
The following table summarizes Mist’s new technology partnerships which will help customers accelerate their business success across multiple location technology areas.
| Partner | Technology Area(s) |
| Aerial | Wi-Fi Radar |
| InnerSpace | Wi-Fi Location, LiDAR |
| Inpixon | Ultra-Wideband |
| Quarion | Ultra-Wideband |
| SES-Imagotag | Electronic Shelf Labeling |
| Solu-M | Electronic Shelf Labeling |
| Sewio | Ultra-Wideband |
| Wiliot | Battery-free Bluetooth Tags |
Boosting Accuracy with Ultra-Wideband Radio Technology
Ultra-wideband (UWB) has the promise of becoming a standards-based technology that can be the cornerstone of a real-time location system (RTLS). It delivers higher-accuracy location to address additional location use cases for customers, including those for Industrial IoT (IIoT), healthcare, enterprise, logistics and retail environments. Mist has been working with Inpixon, Quarion and Sewio, three leading location and positioning technology providers and is integrating their UWB anchors and tags within the Mist AI-driven enterprise solution. UWB can enable sub 1-foot accuracy when properly deployed and will enable Mist to address new use cases in the safety and high-value asset tracking areas.
“Sewio is excited to work with Juniper and Mist in order to extend our UWB technology to our common customers and integrate our real-time location system with Mist’s innovative AI-driven platform to achieve greater efficiency, profitability and safety within facilities across the many verticals and use cases we serve,” said Milan Simek, CEO and Co-founder at Sewio.
“This partnership integrates Mist’s innovative AI-driven platform with Quarion’s IIoT solution to boost worker safety and improve operational efficiencies within manufacturing facilities, expanding our UWB technology and providing tangible benefits to our common customers,” said Aric Pryor, CEO at Quarion Technology.
“Inpixon has been working with Mist and their customers with our indoor mapping product line for some time and have extended our collaboration to leverage the synergies of Mist’s AI-engine and Inpixon's UWB technology to address new use cases that require higher location accuracy,” said Adam Benson, CTO at Inpixon. “Together, our solution will enable new customer segments to take advantage of indoor positioning for use cases such as shelf-level asset tracking and others across retail, healthcare, manufacturing and enterprise environments.”
Minimizing Operational Costs and Complexity of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
As more customers across many industries continue to expand their use of BLE tags for asset tracking, driving down the operational costs and complexity becomes more critical. To address this, Mist, with its Virtualized BLE (vBLE), is working with Wiliot to simplify ongoing operations and initial system deployment with machine learning on a converged Wi-Fi, BLE and IoT access point to eliminate manual calibration while leveraging innovative battery-free tags that harvest energy by recycling radio signals.
“Part of the value of Wiliot’s sticker-sized battery-free Bluetooth sensor tags is the ability to leverage existing Bluetooth infrastructure. Mist was born with Bluetooth at its heart, so the adoption of Mist by some of the world’s biggest brands and its ability to precisely locate our low-cost intelligent tags makes for a compelling partnership,” said Steve Statler, SVP Marketing and Business Development at Wiliot.
Leveraging Wi-Fi Sensing for Clientless (Device-Free) Location
Wi-Fi sensing is an innovative technology that can eliminate the need to deploy tags while bringing visibility into occupancy, motion and traffic flows within enterprise, healthcare and hospitality environments. It is complementary to other location technologies such as BLE or UWB while addressing several use cases that those technologies cannot easily address.
“We are very excited to be working with Juniper and Mist in order to extend Wi-Fi sensing technology and leverage the Mist AI-Driven enterprise Wi-Fi infrastructure to solve customer challenges. We are already working with many customers to address new clientless (device-free) location problems in the security, safety and patient care areas and are looking to expand to use cases that we can solve with our technologies,” said Michel Allegue, CTO and Co-Founder at Aerial Technologies.
Modernizing the Corporate Campus and Increasing Safety with Indoor Mapping
By leveraging machine learning technology in concert with pervasive Wi-Fi, BLE, UWB and/or LiDAR, one can provide sub-two-meter accuracy for the mapping, asset location and occupancy use cases. The partnership between InnerSpace and Juniper Mist enables high value enterprise applications for the corporate campus across real estate utilization, employee experiences, operations and security and safety. InnerSpace leverages the Mist SDK to transform any space into a Smart Building and can also provide public safety and first responders with enhanced situational awareness to identify the location of civilians in the event of emergencies.
“With Juniper’s Mist wireless solution rapidly expanding its footprint in public and private spaces, it integrates with our indoor location solutions to enable our shared companies to radically transform the corporate campus," said James Wu, CEO, InnerSpace. "Together, we will be able to offer companies the ability to fundamentally change their business with new customer and employee experiences, create new streams of revenue and to do so quickly and at scale."
Simplifying Electronic Shelf Labeling (ESL) Deployments for Retail
With the digitization of retail environments by leveraging electronic shelf labels to maintain agility and reduce costs, lowering the cost of installation and operations of this complementary retail technology is increasingly important. Integrating the ESL gateway with the Mist Access Points, lowers costs by eliminating the need for additional cabling and power while also leveraging the Mist platform to locate and interact with the gateways. This can give shoppers access to better information in-store as well as digital services such as indoor navigation, product search and fast payment while eliminating manual, error-prone price changes and simplifying inventory management.
“Partnering with Mist is a great opportunity to further accelerate the massive adoption of our ESL and IoT solutions in North America and the world. The innovative AI and location technology advances developed by Mist, when integrated with our Retail IoT solutions, brings stores a cost-efficient and lean infrastructure to help them achieve their digital transformation,” said Philippe Bottine, CEO Americas at SES-imagotag. “I am delighted to collaborate with Mist to turn physical stores into digital assets for retailers and brands.”
“The joint solution between Mist and SoluM can reduce installation costs and complexity for ESL systems in a wide range of cases, including retail shops, smart offices, hospitals, hotels and classrooms. This partnership creates an all-in-one platform that brings together the advanced technology of AI-driven Wi-Fi and ESL systems to increase deployment speed and streamline maintenance without requiring additional devices”, said Jeho Lee, President at SoluM America.
Additional Resources:
- 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Indoor Location Services, Global: view report
- Mist Technology Partnerships Page: https://www.mist.com/ecosystem/
- More information on Mist location technology and solutions here
- Follow Mist Systems online: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
- Juniper Blogs and Community: J-Net
About Juniper Networks
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Media Relations:
Leslie Ruble
Juniper Networks
408-936-2111
lruble@juniper.net