50 episodes listed below
Conversations with the people wiring everyday objects to the cloud.
The Mr. Beacon Ambient IoT Podcast talks shop with the people building battery-free sensors, smart labels, store-scale Bluetooth networks and the standards that connect them. The conversations stay close to a commercial question: what it takes for these technologies to get past the pilot stage and work at scale.
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The Mr. Beacon Ambient IoT Podcast is an interview show about giving physical things a digital voice: tags, sensors, shelf labels and packages that can say where they are and what they have been through. Its guests come from the companies building that layer. Simon Ford of Blecon, Jenny Stanley of Appetite Creative, Andy Ellwood of Stretch and Steve Hanna, a distinguished engineer at Infineon, all appear in the recent run. So do returning voices such as Dominique Guinard, on his fifth appearance. The host tends to frame the stakes before the guest says a word. In one episode, that means arguing that a ten-dollar device is worthless if deploying it costs two thousand. The host offers this as the reason so many IoT projects never leave proof of concept. In another, the framing is Google's lawsuit over hacked firmware in millions of its devices. From there the talk gets specific. With Ford, the conversation turns to how Zebra handhelds already in frontline use can suddenly form a Bluetooth network. He also cautions that a company has to earn the right to share that data before brokerage models make sense. Stanley recalls a lactose-free milk brand that asked shoppers a question when they scanned. It found that more than seventy percent were not lactose intolerant, which pushed the brand toward a healthy-lifestyle message. Hanna covers counterfeit medication, informed consent under rules like HIPAA and GDPR, and AI as a tool for attackers and defenders alike. The episode list shows how wide the beat runs, taking in battery-free sensors, kinetic energy harvesting, electronic shelf labels, real-time location tracking, smart food labels and seafood traceability. Digital product passports come up across several conversations, with guests including Thomas Knothe, chair of JTC 24, and Thomas Roedding of Narravero. Not every episode stays inside hardware. Ellwood's app compares a full grocery list across stores, and he pictures every shopper having an AI agent on their side, the way a homebuyer has a buyer's agent. Guinard's episode covers C2PA, a provenance standard for images, video, audio, documents and text. He and the host agree it works like a digital product passport for a document. The host is not neutral on the subject, faulting Apple for lagging on support and connecting the stakes to elections and images from war zones. Between the technical stretches, conversations sometimes wander to where a guest grew up or a filmmaker's long road to Baby Driver. Sign-offs tend to urge listeners to be safe and enjoy the journey, sometimes with a recommendation from outside tech, such as a saxophonist on Spotify. For a first listen on the privacy questions that shadow this whole field, 'Secure by Design: Ambient IoT, AI, and the Future of Trust' is a sensible entry point.
Made for: Suits a listener who works near retail, logistics, packaging or product hardware and wants to hear how ambient IoT is actually being deployed, from the companies doing it. It also fits a curious generalist who will sit through some technical detail for the business story underneath.
What sets it apart: Rather than treating IoT as a gadget beat, it stays with the commercial plumbing: deployment cost, partnerships such as Blecon's with Zebra, and standards like digital product passports and C2PA. Returning guests such as Dominique Guinard give it a running cast of industry voices.
Proximity and location technologies are key to the Internet of Things (IoT) and are causing our digital and physical worlds to converge. Mr. Beacon is a series of interviews with the leaders of companies that are at the center of this revolution. Steve Statler wrote "Beacon Technologies", a survival guide for people that want to design solutions that use Bluetooth beacons to create experiences that combine location awareness with the power of cloud computing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A lactose-free milk scan finds most respondents aren't lactose-intolerant; your marketing assumptions start sweating.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear, grounded look at C2PA, election trust, and the Apple-shaped gap in adoption.
The episode frames C2PA as a practical answer to a growing problem: AI has made synthetic media easier to create, while audiences still need ways to judge what they are seeing and sharing.
A grounded episode on Stretch, grocery shopping, and the founder discipline behind retail technology.
Stretch connects a familiar grocery problem with a bigger retail-tech bet: shoppers want to know whether the store they pick will actually be best for their list.
A grounded look at why IoT economics stall and how Zebra devices could help turn beacons into infrastructure.
The episode starts with a blunt problem: many IoT projects fail before they prove themselves, and the real drag is often the cost of getting them into the field.
A grounded case for packaging as a feedback loop, led by a milk campaign that changed course.
Connected packaging comes across as a practical research channel for brands, not just a place to park a scan code. Jenny Stanley of Appetite Creative draws the clearest lesson from a lactose-free milk campaign: scans showed that more than 70% of respondents were not…
Ambient IoT's future depends on building security into the product before trust is put at risk.
Ambient IoT only earns a place in ordinary life when trust is built into connected products from the beginning. This episode looks at security through the real risks of compromised firmware, moving from Google devices such as smart picture frames and televisions to in-car…
Emerging tech after the buzzword phase.
Industrial tech builders, pressed on how it works.
Specialists walking through software's tradeoffs, one system at a time.
Founders and engineers on AI coding agents like Claude Code, and supply chain security.
["The Mr.
Andy Elwood says Americans spend almost a trillion dollars a year on groceries, yet shoppers still walk into 40,000-square-foot stores without a source of truth for prices.
Steve opens the Mr.
Steve Statler talks with Jenny Stanley of Appetite Creative about connected packaging as a two-way digital channel between brands and consumers.
Steve Hanna opens this Mr.
Thaddeus Segura, Vice President of Product at Vusion Group, says the company has grown about 30% year over year for over a decade and will be fully deployed across all Walmart stores by the end of next year.
Leon Nicholas, VP of Data Insights at Smurfit Westrock, tells host Steve that retail leaders are losing sleep over unpredictable tariffs and what he calls "relevance angst." He credits Walmart's 4,000-plus U.S.
WePower founder Larry Richenstein says a single press of its G100 push button can wake a microprocessor, read three sensors, and send 25 to 30 encrypted Bluetooth messages.
An interview with Royal Mail's head of digital supply chain strategy about deploying Ambient IoT technology across their operations.
An interview with Kevin Eller about IoT in healthcare and auto-ID, celebrating the 200th episode.
Interview with the CEO of Always AI about vision AI applications in retail, restaurants, and mining.
An interview discussing how to achieve real-time visibility in supply chains using IoT location technologies and standards.
Interview with Jerry Pollitt, CEO of Blyot, discussing IoT beacons and their applications in the healthcare market.