Veea, Qualcomm tap into edge connectivity for next-gen retail technology

Veea, in collaboration with iFREE Group, created the Smart Retail application, TROLLEE smart shopping cart.  TROLLEE smart shopping cart, as supported on Veea’s VeeaHub platform, is one of the several smart vertical solutions coming to market resulting from this collaboration.

The TROLLEE smart shopping cart experience, enabled by Qualcomm APQ8053 and Qualcomm IPQ7153 IoT solutions, is a highly advanced smart shopping cart platform, developed by iFREE Group, that offers one of the most advanced smart retail solutions, leveraging hybrid edge-cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), indoor positioning systems, contextual digital advertising and other technologies powered by Veea’s VeeaHub platform that will revolutionize big box and supermarket retail by bridging the online-to-offline (O2O) customer journey and experiences.  TROLLEE represents another example of Smart City applications that further benefits from VeeaHub platform’s AdEdge advertising solution. The AdEdge application that runs on VeeaHub’s Linux server delivers the content to TROLLEE’s display.

Veea’s AdEdge is a full-featured end-to-end advertising platform offering both cloud-based and local management of the in-store advertisements.

Its contextual digital advertising solution is a highly sophisticated advertising platform that intelligently and proximally micro-targets shoppers, or visitors at any venue, in the real world with interactive and immersive advertising from a global network of advertisers. It processes real-time data from multiple sources to provide holistic insights and deeper intelligence about ad performance, viewer attentiveness, demographics and shoppers’ preferences. Retailers can for the first time set a full range of advertising campaign goals and constraints that are delivered locally through VeeaHub platform’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) with the ability to cache the ad content for targeted, personalized advertising supported by its highly accurate indoor positioning solution.

VeeaHub powers the TROLLEE platform for delivery of ads and promotions in real-time, linked to location beacons in-store, so retailers and brands can engage customers at the perfect moment to influence their buying decisions. It leverages its on-board AI and activity monitoring data collection software to carry out simple automated decisions that enhance customers’ overall retail experience and satisfaction, thus improving customer loyalty and profitability. The solution is ideal for supermarkets and “big box” retailers.

The platform may optionally be integrated with the retailer’s loyalty program and/or POS to tie together all the above with customer purchase history to deliver the most satisfying shopping experience while substantially increasing the value of the in-store advertising by reporting the ad conversions. TROLLEE trials now underway in Southeast Asia, China, and Japan are garnering positive feedback from major retailers. One of the region’s largest supermarket chains has been collaborating closely in the development of TROLLEE.

VeeaHub is a groundbreaking Smart Computing Hub product platform, with a unique software architecture and a comprehensive range of wired and wireless connectivity, supported by extensive cloud-based network management, monitoring and maintenance services. VeeaHub software platform’s powerful Linux server runs user applications in complete isolation in secure Docker containers and supports multiple applications concurrently on one or several VeeaHub units across the mesh network installed at the retail location in a manner similar to the way last generation of Wi-Fi Access Points are installed.

VeeaHub’s highly integrated platform provides enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6, IoT and cellular connectivity solutions, including 4G and 5G SD-WAN services, as either a primary or a failover WAN connection, with a Cloud-based full security stack for TROLLEE and other applications within the store.  It incorporates IoT connectivity including Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Classic, Zigbee and LoRaWAN. VeeaHub nodes installed on the local network instantaneously create a self-organizing Connectivity Mesh, called vMesh, that simultaneously provides for a Computing Mesh, a microservice-based Service Mesh, an Application Mesh and an Edge Intelligence Mesh that also supports a highly accurate indoor positioning solution.

Retailers can optionally implement other VeeaHub AdEdge-supported solutions such as smart digital signage, Augmented Reality (AR) throughout the store further supported by an SDK for the retailer’s smartphone or smart glasses, smart unattended “store within the store”, and several others alongside TROLLEE or just independently. TROLLEE and VeeaHub platform’s combined AdEdge digital advertising solution rewrite the rules of digital marketing. Retailers will benefit from increased sales and a new source of highly-coveted advertising revenue. The companies are now making the solution available for Proof-of-Concept trials with major retailers globally.

Advertising content, special offers and/or coupons for products in the store are cached on VeeaHub units and are delivered instantaneously when a shopper is in proximity of the advertised products for unparalleled shopping experiences. Real-time downloading of this content from the Cloud wouldn’t result in satisfactory user experiences due to latency and lack of tight integration with indoor positioning systems.

Shoppers can find what they need more efficiently while checkout is streamlined, reducing staffing requirements. Based on shoppers’ journeys through the store, retailer’s planograms can be highly optimized for most shoppers through machine learning and AI. Customers will use this virtual, personal shopping device as a concierge to seek recommendations, discounts, and product reviews to make their in-store experiences unique, memorable, immersive, fun, and, most importantly – easy.

An introductory video of the TROLLEE Smart Retail Solution is available here.

Article Topics

cellular  |  edge AI  |  IoT  |  Qualcomm  |  retail  |  smart retail  |  Veea  |  WiFi