The WLPC Prague Recap & Exploring the Future of Wireless and Robotic Technology in the Food Service Industry

Ready to immerse yourself in the world of wireless technology? We guarantee this episode will feed your curiosity, as we journey through the captivating world of the Wireless LAN Professionals Conference (WLPC) in Prague. From examining the pocket-sized OSEM nomad to discussing the AI-powered go component from ECHAHOW, we unravel the innovation and technology that are reshaping the industry. And with the collective wisdom from industry experts like Coleman, there's plenty to learn.

The future of dining is here, and we're serving up insights on the robotic revolution sweeping the restaurant industry. Ponder the impacts of automation in establishments like White Castle, and consider what this shift means for the food service industry. The episode also touches on the glitz and glamour of the WBA awards and the CES 2024 show. Plus, we're excited to share riveting conversations with WLAN pros and a sneak peek into the forthcoming wireless community event in Orlando with influential speakers such as Peter McKenzie, Ali, Adrian Granados, Robert Ferulo, and Glenn Kates. It's a feast of technological advancements, industry insights, and community connections. Tune in, and let's explore the future together!

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:30

It's the Wireless Nerd. And today is a Monday, october 30th, tomorrow's Halloween and I am just back from WLPC in Prague. Man, what a trip, what a trip. We had a great time. It was so good to see everybody and hang out and just be a part of the community and be a part of the wireless industry. Everyone got together. I mean there were like 180 people that were there 160, 180, whatever the number is from all over the place. I came in and we just had a spanking good time. We learned a lot. There was a lot of content, so much content this year, every year. You know every.

Speaker 0: 1:07

The way that works is if you, if you have something that you want to talk about let's say you have a topic that you want to talk about you go online and there's a call for papers in the one for WLPC. Phoenix actually ends today, but there's a call for papers. It might already be over, so I apologize if that's bad information, but I submitted a topic and I hope you did too, because once you submit the topic, the entire world, anyone who's involved in the industry, they can jump online, they can vote for that topic and if you get chosen, you get to stand up and present, and it's about a third, and in Prague I think it was exactly one third. 30% of the people that were there at the event itself were also presenters. And man, we had some good talks this year. So, either way, let's get started. I want to talk about a couple of things here what's new, what's now and what's next. But some of that blurs together because as we're coming off at WLPC, it seems like everything is new or everything is now. So I've got some show notes I'm going to try and look at over here, because there's just so much that was happening in the industry and so much that was happening that was there. I really, you know God, so difficult.

Speaker 0: 2:07

Let's, let's start off with, and start off with Hamina. Hamina, you know UC crashed my podcast last week, which is phenomenal. I love UC. You know, it's always, always a good time when a vendor can crash. He happened to be walking through and he had in his pocket what we now know as the nomad, the OSEM nomad. So OSEM worked together with Hamina to come up with a really cool kit that they can use for walking around doing surveys, kind of like a sidekick, but for Hamina the price point is about the same. I'll wait for the slides from WLPC to come out for you to get that information, but it's really great. It's small, it's about that big, fits in your pocket, connects via USBC. It's a phenomenal little device and there's been a lot of survey work that's been done with it already. So it's really neat to see that you've got that walking survey Now, that information that could be fed back in Hamina to go along with.

Speaker 0: 2:57

You know another tool in the industry I know with the WLAN Pi you can grab some of that data and obviously with the sidekick and the sidekick to from ECHAHOW, that's there. Speaking of ECHAHOW, I got to use their AI. They're just go component. I walked around and did it myself. I thought that was pretty neat. But all in all, just what you know Cidos, psydos, however you say it, they were there.

Speaker 0: 3:17

Also, you had all these tools that you know. I think I've made a tweet about it. I tweeted something out where I said you know, last year there was only one or two, right, maybe even only one, and this year, so much was there, even the thing from Ubiquiti. One of our buddies, peter McKenzie, had the little Ubiquiti deal and he was walking around showing that you know, for a hundred bucks, good enough. It's called Wi-Fi man and if you go into the Ubiquiti website they have its hundred bucks and it's got a little Mag deal and it clips to the back of your phone and it gives you some very basic information. It's not for doing.

Speaker 0: 3:46

You know massive stuff like the, like the echos and the hominas of the world, but you know it's there and the Net Ally Julio, was there in full force showing off some incredible new product. You know all the stuff that's out there the CyberScope and the Air Check they give way an Air Check, which is awesome. Link Sprinters, all kinds of these tools are out there. And so Net Ally showed up and Cetus was there and Haminah was there, and then we even saw a company called Aronia A-A-R-O-N-I-A. Aronia showed up with this incredible spectrum analyzer that does, like the entire you know everything up to I think it's like six or eight gigahertz and it's got incredibly fast resolution and it showed us everything from drones to packet inspection to capturing 160 megahertz channels to you know everything in between. It runs about three. You know about 3000 bucks for the device and it was like man I said. I tweeted that it won this. Shut up and take my money award.

Speaker 0: 4:36

The only problem is it's like you know when, when, like with any event, when you get home you're like, man, that was such a cool product and I'm like, well, what would I actually do with it? You know, what would you do with a $3,000 spectrum analyzer that you know needs all these? You know little contraptions. It's like, well, it's cool, but let's see, you know, let's see how that flashes out. Either way, it was great to see so much innovation, so much technology just in the spectrum analyzation part and the survey part. You know there's a lot of, just a lot of cool stuff happening there.

Speaker 0: 5:03

There were incredible talks. Coleman God, you can't mess with Coleman. Coleman comes out and starts talking about Wi-Fi 7. All kinds of great information about Wi-Fi 7, you know was had there. Even, you know, ruckus brought out CommScope, brought out their access point and showed it off, which was pretty cool.

Speaker 0: 5:19

We got to hear from Peter McKenzie talking about offsets, about why you shouldn't use offsets when you're doing propagation and assessment, modeling and planning, and you made a very strong case for that. He, peter, even didn't talk on Wi-Fi 10. There was a total joke, but it was hilarious. I don't know. I'm sure that'll get published also. So a little bit of a you know, since the humor in the middle of everything, just it was a really good time and I think that what it always goes back to is a WLPC. It's always about the community, it's about the people, it's about being there, it's about being part of it.

Speaker 0: 5:52

The talks are one thing, the presentations are another. The freebies and the giveaway Cisco Maraki, cisco giving out 100, over 150. Wi-fi 60, 91, 66 access points to everyone. That was there, shameless plug. I get to be a part of that. So that was really cool and the feedback has been tremendous. You know, it's not every day that we can do something like that, or it's not every day that even as an attendee you get something like that. So I'm really, really proud that I got to be a part of that. I know how much vendor interaction like that means to the wireless community. So the fact that I'm in a position, with my coworkers at Cisco, that we could make that happen, that was just like icing on the cake for us. I mean, it's like I was like Santa Claus. It was so neat being able to hand, physically hand everybody an AP. That was awesome.

Speaker 0: 6:37

And it is about the community. It's about the people. It's about doing things for people that appreciate it and being around the people in the industry that love this stuff as much as you do. It didn't matter where they came from. I mean, countries from all over the world showed up at Prague.

Speaker 0: 6:49

So I'm really looking forward to WLPC in Phoenix in 2023. That's in February, I believe. It's like the 19th through the 22nd, 18th through 22nd, something like that. So mark your calendars, make sure you make it out to Phoenix. This is the 10-year anniversary for WLPC. It's going to be cool. There's lots of cool stuff hiding behind this smile. You just happen to hear conversations. That's all I'm going to say. So get ready for Phoenix. Phoenix is going to be great. Make your tribal plans now. We'll see out there. It's going to be awesome. What also happened this week in the Now category?

Speaker 0: 7:21

Wireless Broadband Alliance announced their winners for 2023 for the WBA Industry Awards, and three of them caught my attention. Granted, there were some great stuff. Some other companies got some things. I'm not trying to take away from them, but the three that really that were impactful to me. One CTO of the year goes to Matt McPherson, cto over here at Cisco Very cool. I love working with that guy. It's great to be a part of the same organization where you know someone like that is leading something. So that was pretty cool to have him. So many great CTOs out there in the industry, so that was some great recognition for him. But also Best Wi-Fi Network Technology Award and Best Wi-Fi for Social Impact Award goes to my buddies over at OpenWi-Fi and I am overdue on a blog post on the state of OpenWi-Fi, from at least my perspective, because I was a little critical, you could say.

Speaker 0: 8:06

After leaving, after being gone, being dismissed from Metta, I was curious about who was going to take it over and what they were going to do with it. And it has proven to just be incredible. And I mean, you know what? They have a secret weapon over there. Her name is Lauren and if you don't know, lauren, ms Delafuente, is the secret weapon at OpenWi-Fi. Jack, you're doing a great job. I know you're doing a great job, howard, the team, everyone over there, is doing a great job. But, lauren, kudos to you. I know you did a lot of hard work laying all that stuff out for that.

Speaker 0: 8:39

So, knowing that the winning entry is Tip OpenWi-Fi for Best Wi-Fi Network Technology Award, opening the door for Better Wi-Fi and Best Wi-Fi, for Social Impact that was the reason. That was the reason I was there. That social impact component and being able to lower the barrier of entry for high quality Wi-Fi by working with Tip and by working with OpenWi-Fi, I think is really cool. So I can't wait to see what happens with OpenWi-Fi going into the future. Such great vendor support. The network management components are really coming along. Talk to one of the guys from Toronto. I mean there's like a lot of really cool things happening in that space and to see OpenWi-Fi get that recognition now it's just showing the year after year, product after product. It's creeping up there, which is really cool.

Speaker 0: 9:20

To move over into the new category, obviously, hominess Survey was a pretty good announcement. I mean that was like it's one of those things where everybody in the industry was asking for it. So many people were like, oh man, I just wish we could have something that would do site survey. And there it is. I'm really excited that that product has made it to market, so very excited for the team and Hominess. I know that they were looking forward to it too, and now it's just a matter of when it hits the street and who's going to start using it and how they're going to start using it, and it just drives that innovative approach to everyone in the industry to see that.

Speaker 0: 9:54

Also something that caught my eye White Castle deploying robotics in their kitchen. A couple of years ago I got to work I was very heavily involved in the food service industry when I was working with Comcast Business and lots of customers there are doing lots of things, and I remember going to one of these vendor events. Where you go to this was a big restaurant chain and they invite all their franchisees to come out and be a part of this event and so all the franchisees show up and then all the people that provide the technology and the products and services for the franchisees are also there. And one of them that was there was this robotic fry cook and what it would do is it would automate the process of. It was a wings place. They made buffalo wings and it automated the process of making sure the oil was in there and then dipping the chicken wings in the fryer and then pulling it out and dumping them and doing the fries and everything else and, aside from everything, it was like just insurance alone paid for that device. I mean, if you've got two or three employees that are doing it, the amount of burns that happen in the back of the kitchen and the amount of accidents and the amount of product that's lost and the lack of consistency because the oil hasn't been changed or whatever it is. There's all these reasons that automating things and fryers works really well, especially compared to other components of the restaurant or of the facility.

Speaker 0: 11:12

And it catches my eye because obviously this is going to require some type of connectivity, maybe wired, maybe fibered in, maybe Wi-Fi, whatever it is. But the fact that White Castle is doing it was a big sign to me, because that's a pretty well-known, pretty, pretty big restaurant chain and they're doing this to help speed it up and help with insurance and everything else. But this is one of those sign of the times. It's where we're, not just the AI component of what's happening with those devices, but the augmentation, the robotic augmentation, of what's happening with devices coming into kitchens and into the food service industry. It starts there and so, knowing that now more devices are making their way into that marketplace or into that workspace, those all require connectivity. Those are going to require pretty instant connectivity and, again, I don't know, don't know how many of them are wired versus unwired, but it's something to think about when you start to think about how automation is going to really impact an industry, and I think food services is definitely one of those.

Speaker 0: 12:10

So, white Castle doing that sign of the times, having the surveys new, what's happening now, wlpc 2023, we got the WBA awards and then what's coming up next? And I apologize, I'm sure there's other stuff happening in the industry, but my mind is still in Prague. I mean, I am like that was such a good show this year and it was filled and there wasn't a single seat available. It was standing room in there for people that paid to be there. I mean, it was just so great and having everyone there was just God, it was just awesome. I can't wait till Phoenix. So many wonderful things happening. So what's coming up next? Obviously, ces 2024 is coming up in January. I love that show because it tells you what's happening in the industry that we're all serving in, that consumer industry. Speak of consumer industry.

Speaker 0: 12:52

Look for some really cool content that we've got. We're putting together a couple of videos. We meaning I and the crew here at Waves, where we're going to do some really neat, some really fun things about wifi. It's going to be really cool Work with a couple of home builders and some equipment manufacturers and some service providers. It's really awesome. I'm excited about that because I think you know, as more people are using wireless everywhere they go, this is really a great chance to focus in not just on the commercial side of it, but what they're doing residential as well. So looking forward to that.

Speaker 0: 13:24

If you want to start a fight with wireless engineers this popped up in the WLAN pros chat If you're not a part of the Slack channel for wifi pros sorry, I said WLAN pros, but it's wifi pros drop a message, slide into the DMs me, sam Clements, may you know. There's a whole bunch of us that they can get you access on there. But the wifi pros chat is a great place to catch up with people. Tons of people in there, lots and lots of messages, and this one was fantastic. Josh Tackett says does anyone have good job description examples that might illustrate the difference between a wireless analyst and a wireless engineer? Here we go. There was almost fighting words when it comes to defining what a wireless engineer is. A couple of friends of my Justin Carraway. If you're listening, carraway always has his. He's got his double E certification. You know certificates and diplomas and whatnot and he'll he'll go to bat with you day to day on those. So that's a fun thing to start.

Speaker 0: 14:13

Also, I came across something called wireless community, the Orlando wireless community event, also happening in Atlanta and the UK. Thursday November 9th at 5pm in Orlando, 8480 international drive. This is the wireless community event. Association with Imperium data Hamina, arista, arista, sorry. Excel text. Some of my, some of my pals are speaking at this. It's going to be pretty neat.

Speaker 0: 14:36

The future of Waikow with Peter McKenzie and Ali, and then discovery mechanisms for 6E with Adrian Granados. Zero touch network assurance with Robert Ferulo. Dude, robert is from Arista. What a guy, what a guy, what a fun guy to hang out with. And then Glenn Kates can be talking about ham radio. And if you don't know Glenn, that's like if I had a sign that said nerd, nerd, nerd, but in a really good way, glenn is is one of my favorite people in the entire industry.

Speaker 0: 15:00

So if you're in or around the Orlando area Thursday 9 November, there's some tickets left. It's free to go to. It's from 5 to 8 o'clock, 8480 international drive, orlando, florida, and then there's another show coming up in Atlanta afterwards. I don't even know who this is. I don't know what wireless community is. It's a little elephant looking thing.

Speaker 0: 15:21

Let's see who's speaking at that one Peter McKenzie, ali, paul Sharma I don't know Paul Sharma from Arista. Oh, perule Sharma, I don't know, I don't know that person. And then Ali, there's one there. And then their last one with Natalie. What's up? Oh, had fun with Dan and the crew over there in improv. Good people. Cradlepoint. Uk wireless community event. Thursday 23rd November. Tino Kenosa, andrew McHale oh sweet. Who else is on their bin toner, if you don't know? Ben? Ben's a good guy. And Dan. If only Apple did wifi design. Dan's going to give a talk. He's hilarious. So, if you're in the UK, alan Vagy and Terrell Boardman's going to be there. Peter Rickson, peter McKenzie is going to be there.

Speaker 0: 16:08

This whole thing, wyco never heard of it, didn't even know it was a thing, but they look like a little elephant. Google it. Maybe they'll be coming to a town near you. Maybe not. Orlando, atlanta and London. November 9th, november 16th, november 23rd. Anyway, that's all my time today. I, you know me. I like to keep this thing short and sweet. I'm a minute over at 16 minutes and if I can impress anything on you, that's go to WLPC. It was a blast. I will see y'all next week and and that's it. We got some some cool products coming in. Sponsorship stuff has already started, so I'm looking forward to that and and yeah, I hope y'all have a wonderful week. I hope if I didn't see you in Prague, even if I did have a great time. I look forward to seeing everyone.