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AI Meets IoT:

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 10:05:01 -0700

What happens when AI meets one of the hardest parts of the Internet of Things: embedded firmware?

In this episode of the Mr. Beacon podcast, I talk with Ismail Hamdad, Co-Founder of Adsum Networks, about the intersection of AI, IoT and embedded software, and why making IoT development dramatically faster could be essential to unlocking the technology’s full potential.

Ismail argues that while AI coding tools have transformed software development for PCs, mobile applications and cloud systems, IoT presents a fundamentally different challenge. An IoT development environment may involve many devices communicating simultaneously, with timing, hardware interfaces, serial ports, logs and power constraints all contributing to the complexity.

Adsum’s answer is their IoT Decoder, an extension for VS Code and compatible development environments designed specifically for embedded IoT development. Rather than replacing the underlying AI model, it gives the model the tools and context it needs to work effectively with physical hardware.

Ismail describes this as combining “tool bits” with “knowledge bits”: the tools needed to interact with IoT hardware, plus the right expert knowledge delivered at precisely the moment it is needed. The goal is to help developers get working firmware faster, use fewer AI tokens, and potentially achieve results with smaller, less expensive models.

The conversation also explores why IoT has not yet delivered on its full promise, the importance of open and programmable hardware, potential applications across manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, energy, agriculture and more, and Adsum’s vision for a contributor ecosystem where developers can share and potentially monetize their embedded expertise.

In the second half, Ismail takes me...Read More

Why Matter, Thread, and Zigbee Are Converging

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 07:03:13 -0700

On this episode of the Mr. Beacon Podcast, Matt Maupin, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Silicon Labs, joins us to explore the evolving world of connected devices and the technologies shaping the future of IoT.

The conversation examines Silicon Labs’ collaboration with Philips Hue and the development of lighting products that support both Zigbee and Matter over Thread. Matt explains how concurrent multi-protocol technology allows a single device to participate in multiple ecosystems, giving manufacturers greater flexibility while helping consumers avoid being locked into one platform.

We break down the roles of Zigbee, Thread, and Matter, including how these technologies work together across different layers of the connectivity stack. Matt also discusses the growing importance of ecosystem interoperability, with major technology companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and Samsung supporting Matter and Thread border routers becoming increasingly common in consumer devices.

The discussion also covers wireless reliability, mesh networking, multipath performance, coexistence, and the challenges of designing dependable wireless products for both consumer and commercial environments. Matt shares how Silicon Labs’ experience with Zigbee, Thread, and Matter, combined with its hardware and software expertise, helps the company address these challenges.

Additional topics include chip integration, lighting-specific solutions, Bluetooth Channel Sounding, commercial network power control, and emerging applications such as smart locks and hands-free access.

Whether you work in IoT, wireless technology, smart home products, or simply want to understand where connected devices are headed, this episode offers an accessible look at the standards and innovations making...Read More

Saving the Earth, One IoT Recipe at a Time with Rob Tiffany

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:29:58 -0700

What if the Internet of Things could do more than optimize factories, track assets and make businesses more efficient? What if it could help tackle some of humanity’s biggest challenges?

On this episode of the Mr. Beacon Podcast, Rob Tiffany, Research Director at IDC and author of “Saving the Earth with the Internet of Things,” joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about turning IoT into a practical tool for solving real-world problems.

Rob’s book contains 100 IoT “recipes” organized around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, covering everything from agriculture, food and water to sustainable cities and other critical challenges. His approach is deliberately practical: identify a problem, choose the right sensors, connectivity and computing, collect the data, analyze it, and, most importantly, act on it. As Rob points out, sometimes simple automation is all you need; a moisture sensor can trigger irrigation without requiring sophisticated AI.

We also dig into Rob’s remarkable history with IoT. He recounts pioneering work connecting vending machines in the 1990s, using wireless technology to monitor inventory, improve driver routes, predict failures and understand consumer preferences, long before today’s cloud and AI hype.

Rob also offers a refreshingly practical definition of the digital twin, describing it fundamentally as a data structure rather than simply a flashy 3D model. From there, the conversation moves into the convergence of IoT and AI, including how digital twins can become machine-learning models and how generative AI can turn real-time IoT data into actionable guidance.

This is a conversation about moving beyond technology for technology’s sake, and using IoT to measure, understand and ultimately change the physical world.

Alper explains what makes LoRaWAN different: long range, deep indoor coverage, extremely low power consumption, unlicensed spectrum, and infrastructure that can be deployed through private, public, community, and satellite networks. Devices can operate for more than ten years on a single battery, opening the door to applications where conventional connectivity simply does not work.

The conversation explores where LoRaWAN fits and where it does not. It is not designed for streaming video or other high-bandwidth, real-time applications. Instead, it targets the enormous world of massive IoT, where sensors may only need to send small amounts of data regularly. That makes it particularly powerful for smart buildings, metering, industrial monitoring, agriculture, asset tracking, smart cities, and more.

Alper also explains why he believes LoRaWAN's open-standard approach has been central to its success, and how an ecosystem of hundreds of companies has enabled the technology to evolve from a single protocol into a broader end-to-end architecture.

The conversation then turns to the future: satellite connectivity, geolocation, digital product passports, plug-and-play infrastructure, and the emerging concept of physical AI. Alper describes IoT as the bridge between AI and the physical world, the "digital nervous system" connecting AI's intelligence to physical assets.

Finally, Alper shares the career path that took him from TCP/IP development at Sun Microsystems and decades of standards work to leading the...Read More

Unlocking the Secrets of Physical AI in Agriculture

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 12:20:15 -0700

Vonnie Estes of the International Fresh Produce Association turns the tables on Mr Beacon and interviews him on the flagship podcast that focuses on technology and fresh produce.

The Digital Product Passport Standard Is Here

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:47:09 -0700

A few weeks ago, Europe reached a major milestone in the digital transformation of physical products: the first-ever Digital Product Passport (DPP) standard was finalized. In this episode, Thomas Knothe, Chair of JTC 24 and one of the leading architects of the standard, returns to the Mr. Beacon Podcast to explain what happens next.

The new standard will initially apply to batteries beginning in February 2027, but its impact extends far beyond electric vehicles. Construction materials, textiles, toys, electronics, and many other product categories are expected to follow, creating a standardized digital identity for products sold into the European Union.

Thomas explains how Digital Product Passports work, why they are being mandated, and how the standard balances transparency with the protection of intellectual property. We explore the technical architecture of JTC 24, including identifiers, data carriers, APIs, security frameworks, decentralized data ownership, and the enormous effort required to align hundreds of experts and thousands of comments into a single interoperable framework.

The conversation also ventures into an area that may prove even more significant: artificial intelligence. Thomas shares how AI is already helping implement DPP systems and describes pioneering work at Fraunhofer IPK that uses AI to generate and maintain digital representations of real-world infrastructure. Together, we discuss why Digital Product Passports may become essential infrastructure for AI agents that buy, repair, maintain, recycle, and manage physical assets on our behalf.

If search engine optimization became indispensable for the web, could Digital Product Passports become the equivalent for the physical world?

Whether you're a manufacturer, retailer, technology leader, standards professional, sustainability advocate, or simply curious about...Read More

Bluetooth to Space:

Tue, 19 May 2026 08:36:09 -0700

This week on the Mr. Beacon Podcast, I sat down with Art Tkachenko from Hubble Network for a deep dive into one of the most ambitious developments in IoT: connecting Bluetooth devices directly to satellites in orbit.

Hubble Network has launched a constellation of satellites capable of receiving signals from standard low-cost Bluetooth chips, opening the door to global asset tracking without expensive cellular hardware or traditional satellite radios. Art explains how Hubble combines terrestrial and satellite infrastructure to create seamless IoT connectivity for logistics, industrial monitoring, livestock tracking, critical infrastructure, wildfire detection, and more.

The conversation explores the technical breakthroughs that made this possible, including beamforming, FPGA-based signal processing, ultra-low-power communications, and how Hubble achieves satellite connectivity using hardware that can cost just a few dollars. Art also shares the realities of building and operating satellites, the lessons learned from launching Hubble’s first spacecraft, and the excitement of seeing the first successful signals arrive from orbit.

We also discuss the broader implications for Ambient IoT, developer ecosystems, and why reducing infrastructure complexity is critical for the future of connected devices. We touch on AI-assisted software development, the future of edge computing, and how developer-first platforms may accelerate innovation across the industry.

If you care about IoT, wireless innovation, space technology, or the future of global connectivity, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Art's Top 3 Songs

“Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen:...Read More

AI, What Is It Good For?

Tue, 05 May 2026 07:00:25 -0700

What is AI actually good for? It's a question everyone in technology is wrestling with right now, and this week's episode cuts through the noise with a genuinely compelling answer. We welcome back Curt Schacker, Co-founder of TrackVision, to the Mr. Beacon Podcast to explore where AI delivers real, measurable value rather than just hype.

The conversation centers on one of the most universally painful problems in business: the enormous data-gathering grind that stands between a good idea and actual implementation. Whether you are selling technology or adopting it, there is always a mountain of groundwork to climb before anything useful gets built. Curt makes a convincing case that this is exactly the kind of problem AI was made for. It is extraordinarily good at figuring out who has the data you need, making educated guesses that turn out to be remarkably accurate, and automating the kind of repetitive outreach that would otherwise consume teams of people for months.

The episode uses supply chain transparency and EU Digital Product Passport compliance as a vivid real-world example, but the lessons apply far more broadly. Curt and I dig into why compliance has become the killer app for so many technology platforms, why regulations like the Food Safety Modernization Act slipped their deadlines by 30 months, and what that reveals about the gap between government ambition and business reality.

We also reflect on what AI still cannot replace. Domain expertise, engineering discipline, and a deep understanding of the problem space matter more than ever when you are directing AI to do the heavy lifting. AI can produce output at an astonishing rate, but the humans guiding it need to know what good looks like.

If you are trying to figure out where AI fits into your work and your business, this is a conversation worth your time.

From “Search” to “Find”

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 09:52:32 -0700

In this episode of the Mr. Beacon Podcast, we explore how ambient IoT is reshaping manufacturing with Dr. Karsten Königstein, Managing Director at Sinfosy GmbH. Drawing on decades of experience in production logistics and IoT innovation, Karsten shares how his team is solving one of industry’s most persistent and costly problems: not knowing where things are.

From misplaced pallets to lost high-value assets, manufacturers often struggle with a lack of “ground truth” data. Karsten explains how Sinfosy tackles this challenge by turning everyday technology, such as smartphones, into powerful industrial sensing devices. By combining built-in sensors, Bluetooth beacons, and camera-based QR code tracking, their system delivers precise, real-time visibility into production environments.

A standout innovation is their use of smartphones as fixed infrastructure, mounted to walls or ceilings, to capture and process location data without expensive hardware. Even more compelling is their QR code-based tracking, which enables centimeter-level accuracy at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems like ultra-wideband or RFID. As one automotive customer put it, “This is the best thing since the wheel.”

Karsten also introduces a system-as-a-service model that lowers barriers to adoption by bundling hardware, software, and maintenance into a single offering. The result is a scalable, cost-effective solution that integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise systems like SAP and MES platforms.

Beyond the technology, this conversation dives into entrepreneurship, the realities of building startups within and outside large corporations like Bosch, and the evolving role of data in Industry 4.0.

If you're interested in ambient IoT, smart manufacturing, or practical innovation that delivers real ROI, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want...Read More

The Truth About AI Content:

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:29:06 -0700

In what may be one of the most important episodes of the Mr. Beacon Podcast, returning guest Dominique Guinard joins for a record fifth appearance to tackle a critical issue: how do we know what’s real anymore?

With generative AI making it easier than ever to create hyper-realistic images, videos, and text, the line between authentic and synthetic content is rapidly disappearing. From elections to global conflicts to everyday social media, misinformation is no longer just a nuisance. It is a systemic risk.

Enter C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity), an emerging industry standard backed by major players like Adobe, Microsoft, and Google. Dominique breaks down how C2PA works as a kind of “nutrition label for digital content,” enabling anyone to verify where a piece of media came from, how it was created, and whether AI was involved.

We explore how provenance metadata, digital signatures, and even invisible watermarks can track the full lifecycle of an asset, from camera capture to AI edits to social media distribution. The conversation dives into real-world implications, including combating misinformation, preserving trust in journalism, protecting creators’ rights, and even enabling new business models.

Dominique also shares insights into adoption across platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, and emerging AI tools, as well as the role of hardware manufacturers and regulators in driving this forward.

If AI is reshaping reality, C2PA may be one of the most important tools we have to anchor it in truth.

This is a must-listen for anyone building, consuming, or questioning digital content in the AI era.

Dom’s Top 3 Movies:

“Difference Maker” by NEEDTOBREATH:...Read More