Waves with Wireless Nerd
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Waves with Wireless Nerd
The Future of Restaurant Hospitality, Technology & Connectivity. Plus: Apple's N1 Chip!
The wireless world never stops evolving, and in this episode, Drew Lentz takes us on a journey through the latest developments across multiple technology frontiers. Starting with Apple's intriguing N1 chip introduction, Drew explores what this means for wireless communications and sparks a fascinating discussion about whether Apple might resurrect their once-popular Airport routers. Could this custom silicon be the foundation for Apple's return to networking hardware?
Beyond Apple, the wireless tool landscape continues its rapid evolution. From Sidos unveiling new wall drawing capabilities to Ekahau & Ookla for a groundbreaking "Speed Test Certified" program, vendors are raising the bar through differentiated innovation rather than simply matching features. This certification program particularly resonates as it addresses a long-standing need for verified connectivity validation in public spaces.
The heart of this episode, however, focuses on Drew's revelations from the Food Service Technology Expo (FSTech) in Orlando. Despite being surrounded by AI vendors, restaurant operators consistently steered conversations toward enhancing human connections rather than replacing them with technology. This powerful insight—that people visit restaurants during emotionally significant moments deserving of human interaction—challenges our assumptions about technology's role in hospitality.
Drew articulates a compelling vision where technology should function like reliable plumbing—essential but invisible—enabling memorable human experiences without becoming the focus. The "thin line between useful and creepy" becomes a central theme when discussing personalization, with thoughtful examples of how restaurants might use data to enhance customer experiences while respecting boundaries.
Whether you're a wireless professional, restaurant operator, or technology enthusiast, this episode delivers practical insights about the delicate balance between technological advancement and human connection. As Drew reminds us in his signature straightforward style, the most valuable innovations are those that enhance relationships rather than replace them.
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What's up.
Speaker 1:What's up everybody. Drew Lentz, wireless Nerd. Today is September 18th. It's a Thursday, it's a thirsty Thursday, it's a fabulous Thursday, it's a fun-filled Thursday afternoon. I hope everybody's having a great Thursday. I hope everybody had a great week this week. It's been fantastic.
Speaker 1:I've been out of town a whole bunch this week working on some projects and going out to attend some trade shows, and I think that that's where I want to focus. This week is in the food service space. Before I get into that, a couple of things. One Apple introduced the N1. And the N1, once it was introduced, there were some conversations that took place on LinkedIn back and forth, some people worked at Apple, some people who worked at different manufacturers talking about the N1 and its capabilities. And is it four by four? Is it two by two? It looks like it's two by two. I could be wrong. I don't know if there's a specific spec on it right now. You know I posted, so I saw this thing that was a webpage on applecom and it showed what it was, and then I go to click on it and it's gone. And I was like, well, dude, and so Klaus and I were going back and forth, mr Klaus heading, we were going back and forth trying to find out where it was like what, the what, the final say on it if it was two by two. And so I'm going to'm gonna, I'm gonna scroll through this real quick and see if I can find it.
Speaker 1:But the n1 chip, essentially what happened was apple decided to make their own silicone when it came to communication. So all the wireless communications on side, uh, inside that iphone, the new iphone, are running across their own chip, which is kind of cool for them. I mean, uh, I I think it's neat. They got away from, you know, working with the traditional vendors that are out there in space and they brought everything in on their own. And that was pretty, pretty neat.
Speaker 1:But the question was was it going to work with everything that we needed to work with? So, is it going to work in the industry? Is the N1 chip going to support what we need? And so slowly things are starting to come out. Is it going to work in the industry? Is the in one chip going to support what we need? And so slowly things are starting to come out. Like it's not 320 megahertz at launch, right, it's 160 megahertz. Um, it looks like it is a two by two. Device that's out. There is it, you know. Is it going to be upgradable? Is what? What is the status of that chip going to be? And then the other magic question. Tom's hardware asked the question. Let's see if I can bring up the article. They asked the question about the N1.
Speaker 1:Check this out, oh, tom, yeah. So Tom's Guide right here. Let's flip this screen over real quick. Let's open this thing up and see what I can show you here. And where's my little window capture? It always takes me a minute when I first get started you guys doing that. Look at this, look at what this thing's saying right here. So in Tom's guide it's saying get out of here with this.
Speaker 1:Apple could make Wi-Fi just work with a new airport router and Apple Silicon could be the missing puzzle piece. So this made its way around the slack, the slack circuits and the discord circuits where it was like, well, wait a minute. If they're cranking out their new in one chip set and it's their chip set could this be the rebirth of airport? And you know people are excited about that. However, it doesn't look like that's really the case. I mean, they haven't made any announcements, they haven't hinted at that. There's nothing out there, there's no compelling story that says that they're going to do it. So are they capable of doing it? Yeah, I mean, they'd done it before the airport extreme.
Speaker 1:It was a great access point. If you recall, when our buddy, keith Parsons, was doing the big Wi-Fi bake-off a bunch of years ago in a classroom with all the laptops and tablets laid across the table, he put that thing out there and when he was waiting for the test to come through, he turned on his airport and it did better than the other access points in the room, which was hilarious. So that's kind of cool. Oh, what's up. Look, there's people listening. Yeah, so that's kind of cool. Oh, what's up. Look, there's people listening. Um, yeah, so so there's that. Uh, that they, you know they did it, but it looks like in here you know that that ended before, and so it said well, you know if, if apple's airport came back, they could take a similar approach, and here's all the great things they could do. And it was like well, you know, is there a market for that that they want to get into? We don't know.
Speaker 1:And so it goes on to talk about the N1 in this thread, with Wi-Fi 7, with Bluetooth 6, with support for Thread, with all these things that are in there. And then it was kind of cool to see this. If you scroll down right there, it says as close as you can get to an Apple and it's got the Eero product. Yeah, pretty sick, so shout out to the Euro team. That's pretty dope to see that on there. But it begs the question Do you think that that's something that these guys want to get back into? I don't know, there hasn't been evidence of it. Hopefully Apple's Wi-Fi Gibby Caro says, hopefully Apple's Wi-Fi has been updated, at least for Samsung devices. Yeah, for Samsung devices. Yeah, there's some stuff, man, I bet.
Speaker 1:If I just look up Apple 17 Wi-Fi issues, I wonder if there's anything going on here. Ios 7, that's iOS 17. That's a little bit older, but you know we'll see where it goes. And so let's see what the N1, apple MIMO. Let's Google this and see what happens. Oh, look, is AI going to tell us what's going on here? Whoa, look at that. Ai hooked us up Wi-Fi 7. Yeah, there you go. 2x2, 5g and 4x4. Wow, I love this. You know, ai is something I do want to talk about here in a minute, but not in this context, kind of in this context, but not really. So there you go, that's interesting. I thought that that was something that we definitely needed to touch on real quick was the N1 chip and what the future that goes to Some other things that are happening in the industry.
Speaker 1:Cytos made some announcements they had a webinar that I didn't get a chance to tune into, so hopefully maybe we can get Mika or get someone on the horn here to talk about some of the new stuff that they have going on. But basically they teased out Where's my little screen share? They teased out right here new wall drawing, tools for intuitive controls, richer visuals, flexible floor plan management, enhanced AP control, defined mount type, azimuth and attributes, directly or via CSV, which is kind of helpful for a lot of us. Streamlined workflows uh, extrapolation there so you can build your own settings and sneak peek of the new micro app. So I didn't get to see it, so I don't even know what the micro app is. I haven't even had a chance to tune in. So if you're listening from cdos or cytos and you saw what was going on there, please reach out and post it. See if anybody posts anything in the comments here. No, nothing.
Speaker 1:Excellent presentation. Uh, super agile project development, yeah, but man, I didn't get to see what the dang old thing was, so that's kind of a bummer. But they've got some new announcements that are coming out there and I wanted to highlight that because it's really. It's just so cool to see the innovation in the tool space happening and then happening and happening again, you know, and what's really cool is to see that, instead of all just innovating at the same time, doing the same things, ekahau is innovating in one way with Ookla right, and we're going to talk about that here in a second and CEDOS is innovating in their own way, and then Hamina is innovating just across the board in all these different ways. But they're all doing it a little bit different, a little bit more unique, and at the same time you've got NetAlly in the background bit different, a little bit more unique, and at the same time you got NetAlly, you know, in the background. So hopefully there'll be some announcement from NetAlly soon. I know that they're always working on something, so we'll see where they go, but the bar just keeps getting raised over and over and over again. So that was pretty neat to see. I'm glad that they're doing that, and the thing that I want to talk about from Ookla was kind of interesting because, um, or from you know, eckhau and ucla, because they launched a program which was something that.
Speaker 1:That it's. It's like I like I don't want to say I like I don't even want to say it because you know it's dumb when you start talking about stuff that you could have, could have, would have shoulda. Um, a while back, a long time ago, uh, I had some great conversations with some old friends and some old co-workers about building a tool that just created a basic score of how everything worked and I registered the domain name and it's called NetScore and I made the graphics and I started to build the app and did all the things and life got in the way and the whole concept was can you score a system, can you score a network based on different attributes, and then update that score and share that score so that people can view it, but validated by a third party, and it was like, yeah, man, maybe someday that'll happen, it'll be pretty cool to see that, and we never did anything with it and I don't know that anybody did anything with it. And now, finally, you see what you see. He says Not, you see. But you see what's going on and I'm trying to load up the page as I'm talking here. Check this out, man on. And I'm trying to load up the page as I'm talking here. Check this out, ma'am. So so matt and stew and everyone's tweeting this stuff speed test certified for wireless excellence. Now, I haven't looked into this whole thing, but the concept is I understand it and this is what says matt here's shown off that it's a way to verify connectivity and quality at any venue.
Speaker 1:Later in the week, our global UGLA marketing team got together in person. We ran into poor Wi-Fi at airports, conference rooms and even restaurants. This is exactly why speed test certification matters. So this is a way to take the online scores from UGLA and give them a plaque either a virtual plaque or a physical plaque to show people that it's a verified connection, that it works the way it's supposed to, based on speed test, you know, based on speed testnet speed test that everybody uses and that Ookla uses. So this is really, really neat to see because it's a way to verify that speeds are getting what they are.
Speaker 1:Now I'm not going to go into detail on what I would have done with it, I'm just going to see if they do what I thought that they were going to do and what my old friend, david, thought that they were going to do at the time. There was a really cool market for this, but I don't want to give it away, like you know, not because I'm going to do anything with it, just because I want to watch and see if they do what I hope that they do. It would be pretty neat. So I'm excited, I'm stoked to see this, just because it's really cool to see when they do this test. I don't know what the process looks like for this and I don't know what someone has to do to go through the certification to get the plaque, but once this gets rolled out, it's going to be pretty neat to see across the board whether it's a digital pendant that someone can put on their website for their hotel or whatnot, or if it's an actual plaque that goes inside their building, like the one that you see on the screen. So kudos to them for doing that. And again, it's just another way that innovation happens, and I think that the key there is it's not just about the innovation happening by providing a plaque, but what can we do in our jobs every day so that we can design networks that meet those rigorous qualifications or those rigorous standards.
Speaker 1:And this reminds me about what you know what Wi-Fi was doing before, where you had Wi-Fi certified homes and there weren't, if I recall, there weren't a lot of vendors that participated in that and there weren't a lot of home builders that participated in it. There were a couple of them I don't remember the names, it was Lenar and someone else. There were two of the larger home builders in the United States. But the goal was how do you take a floor plan or a blueprint design around it and get that to be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, certified as a Wi-Fi ready home or Wi-Fi usable home? So when you think about that, it's the idea that you and I you who's listening or watching you can have the ability to help your customers build something that can get quote unquote stamped in a way that's going to give them the ability to provide that Wi-Fi excellence as deemed acceptable by Ookla.
Speaker 1:The problem is is that there's a lot of things that are out of your control. So I get where it's going, but I'm also a little like hesitant, because there's a lot of stuff that happens day to day in a facility that changes the dynamics of the RF, you know so. So kudos to them for doing it. I think it's a really good project and I think in controlled environments it can be really neat, um, but I'm curious to see how how it continuously evolves. Obviously, if there was a sensor there or something that was deployed that was constantly checking the wi-fi and reporting that data back in real time, and instead of a plaque on the wall, maybe it's a digital display that shows what it is versus some type of static component. A couple thoughts there, anyway. So, either way, that's pretty neat. Yeah, so that was happening.
Speaker 1:Now something else happened this week which was fascinating. Keith, going back to Keith, mr Parsons, as Mr Frenet calls him Mr Parsons ran a survey on his LinkedIn and he asked what tool people use to communicate on social media, and he got a fairly decent response, and so, like any nerd, what I did is I didn't want to read everything, so I opened up Claude from Anthropic and I had it analyze the responses to Keith's LinkedIn post so that I could see some numbers and metrics and then dig into some actual analysis based on the people that responded to it. So this is kind of interesting, so I thought I'd share those responses with you. So, keith, in your LinkedIn post you asked how people communicate on social media. You asked what tools people use, and so I had this thing analyzed. So your top platform rankings, as determined by the wireless industry, linkedin represents 82.4% of the responses that responded to Keith's LinkedIn post based on what they use. That responded to Keith's LinkedIn post based on what they used. 82.4% said LinkedIn is their number one go-to for social media, and a lot of it has to do with work. 58% of the people that responded were wireless professionals multiple CW&Es in there, a strong presence of 802.11 networks professionals that were in there. Second was YouTube and Slack. They were tied at 52.9% and X dropped down to 47%.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting because a lot of us used X for a really long time. We used, um, we used Twitter for a really long time to communicate everything that was going on, and and it just got to the point let me see if I can load this up got to the point where there you go, where we were. Uh, oops, wrong one, the screen's open, we. It got to the point where we were. Oh, there, it is sorry about that, there we go whatever. It got to the point where, uh, where no one was using it, just, and I don't know why. I don't like it because, dude, honestly, because I open it up and it's filled with a bunch of stuff I don't want to read. So, so, up at the top, instead of going for you, I just change it to following, and that's what I read on X now, because I don't really care about anything else when I'm looking at it. I'm not trying to get news from it, I'm trying to keep updated with what my friends are doing. So, x and Twitter 47%. Industry concentration, 58% are wireless.
Speaker 1:I asked if there was a response in gender, like if males versus females used one versus another. There were five female responses 29.4. And this was kind of interesting. They emphasized strategic, purpose-driven approach. Minimizing distractions, maximizing effectiveness was the whole idea, and so key gender differences Women were looking for longer, more explanatory responses with strategic reasoning, and men were like longer, more explanatory, responsible, strategic reasoning, and men were like more list, focused. Women looking for the context, dependent, audience focused, strategic men, function, specific, efficiency, focused, categorical. So I thought that was kind of funny man.
Speaker 1:Um, the other thing that was in there was about blue sky and in in some of the first ones, blue sky wasn't even mentioned. Reddit was mentioned. In there a little bit, here we go. Here's the big, the big one. So 11 mentions at first of LinkedIn and X, youtube, slack, reddit, discord, blue sky, mastodon, tick the Joel I'm convinced that Joel Crane is the only person that's actually using Mastodon or blue sky and I think even freaking, you know, hollingsworth is the only guy that's on blue sky. Dude, like why not Dude another platform? I don't, I can't even man, you know. Uh, discord, I I guess I expect him more discord, but all of us are pretty slack heavy. I mean kudos to the, to the Wi-Fi Pro's Slack channel that's on there. Maybe that has a lot to do with it, but I don't know it's. 50% of respondents were in technology and engineering, 35% in business and strategy. Platform categories, linkedin dominates 78.6, and actually rose after I re-ran it. And then the key communication tools Slack and Discord, but nothing else was really mentioned. So anyway, I thought that was fascinating. That was a fun thing to run through. Ai, I agree, mark and everyone.
Speaker 1:I do linkedin, I pop on linkedin and I don't like to see content on linkedin that's not related to business or work or jobs or people talking about the things that they're doing. I don't like to see that stuff on there. I don't like to see anything other than that. That's exactly what I use it. If I want to hear political opinions and I want to hear people going rants and whatever, then I'll get on Facebook, I'll get all over Facebook, but keep that stuff off of LinkedIn, please, please, please, all right, what else I think that's about it? That's all of those things I want to talk about.
Speaker 1:There's some conferences coming up Mobile World Congress, las Vegas 2025 is coming up pretty soon that's October 14th and 15th. And what other shows? Ces? Obviously, wlpc. Oh, call for Papers is open for WLPC. If you want to present at the WLPC, then I encourage you to jump on the website and look up the Call for Papers and put your information in there, because it's coming up soon and this is the perfect time to do it.
Speaker 1:So, phoenix 2025, the call for presentations is up. The screen is at the WLPCcom and if you go there, you can learn more about it. Registration opens on the 15th and if you hit call for presentations right here oh man, look at that, dude Friends you can get in here and you can find some information. Where is it? Oh, there it is. Submit your proposal. There you go. So let's see what happens. It opens up a little air table thing and oh, I'm on the wrong screen. Sorry about that. If you're watching at home, if you're playing along at home, I totally messed that one up and then I minimized it. No, that's not the right one. You know, one of these days I'll learn how to computer properly. Oh, it just all disappeared for me. That's pretty neat. Anyway, let me go back over here. So the call for papers is open. If you want to get in there, just go to thewlpccom. You can learn all about what to go in there. You fill in your first name, last name, your company, link to a bio page about you, put in your presentation title and a descriptive, a descriptive um 250 character limit paragraph. Now you get to choose whether you want to do a presentation, a deep dive or a bootcamp. I suggest that, whatever you want to do, put it in there and let's see what happens. It's going to be a good year. 26 is going to be a good year. The conference is the 17th through 19th. The bootcamps are the 14th through 16th. I just realized that is February 14th through 19th, whoa Well, it's going to be some love at the boot camps, valentine's Day is happening, so that's what's going on there Now.
Speaker 1:What I want to talk about a little bit more in depth is FSTech, and FSTech is the food service technology. Let me see if I can fix this thing again here. It's the Food Service Technology Expo and it just took place this past week in Orlando at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando in Florida, and it was a meeting of a bunch of different people in food service and I attended for the first time. I'd never been to FSTech before and I got the chance to go and I went and it was expensive. It was $5,000 to register to get in there. I think we got a special deal on it, but it was not cheap and I was skeptical. I'm not going to lie. I was totally skeptical because I thought, well, it's a lot of money and it's, you know, time away. It's on a freaking.
Speaker 1:I had to fly out on Saturday and spend a Sunday out there and, dude, I hate traveling on the weekends. I really hate traveling on the weekends. I really try not to do it. But I was like. You know, I'm going to see what it's like, and so I went, so I jumped on the plane and I went out there and I attended and, wow, it was way better than I thought it was going to be and I didn't think it was going to be bad. Let me be 100% clear I didn't think it was going to be bad. It was just way better than I thought it was going to be. And it was a great crowd and it was filled with wonderful people and and the crews that were there were were phenomenal, and so I I snapped a lot of photos. I, you know, I put everything out on on, uh, on Twitter I still use Twitter as kind of as my main go-to there Right, and so it kicked off uh, grace Lear, this, this, this wonderful person, did a, did a song at the beginning, and it was kind of interesting to kick it off because it was BMI, the, the, the music group, that talked about how restaurants and retail facilities are so important in the lives of artists.
Speaker 1:Because I don't know if you know this or not, but when you own a, a place, a store that the public is attending, the public can attend, and you're playing music, you have to become a member of BMI. If not, they can fine you like all kinds of different ways, but if you become a member of BMI, you can play like whatever you want. You get the license. You can play any of the music that's in there. Usually they stick a sticker on the door that says that you're good to go a sticker on the door that says that you're good to go. But I had never thought about how much money is made off of that, off of those royalties, and how that actually makes its way to the artist. So Grace did a really good job explaining that, and then the president of BMI came out and talked a little bit about that also. So that was pretty neat to see Before that check this out, man.
Speaker 1:So if you're looking on the video feed before that, when I went to go check in, they had this whole crowd-connected thing and I was like, oh cool, it's like an RFID tracker, an NFC tracker or something. And I looked around and they had sensors like every 20 feet across the whole facility at the Gaylord Convention Center, and the lanyard that they give you was obnoxious dude. That they give you was obnoxious dude it was. It had this huge plastic thing on it that I immediately took apart because I wanted to see what they were doing. It ends up it's just a chipset and a battery. I'm pretty sure it was NFC. Uh, I don't. I. I really should have brought my flipper with me so I could have cloned it or played with it or had some fun, but I wasn't. I wasn't there to do that. I was there to meet with some people and see what I could learn about the conference. So a little PCB antenna, I tore it apart, I disassembled it and I reassembled it and then I stuck it in my bag because I wasn't going to wear it around my neck and I was like I'm going to cover up my QR code, which is dumb. You guys aren't going to jump into Orlando and go pretend you were me, anyway.
Speaker 1:So FSTech kicked off and I want to go through it real quick. So you had, at first you had a panel and it was the CEO of Habit Burger, the head of technology for Jollibee, the head of marketing for Lettuce Eats, and then it was the CEO of Main Squeeze Juice Company and she gave me a shot of juice which was like ginger and cayenne and whatever. Oh, holy moly that thing. Just like wow, I mean, it woke me up. It was pretty crazy and the first panel really set the tone, I feel like, for the rest of the show. So this was my big takeaway.
Speaker 1:My hot take at FSTech was that the elephant in the room was about how to increase customer relationships and hospitality. In hospitality, for as much technology that was there, for as much AI that was there and as much innovation in point of sale and marketing and all the other stuff, every person there that was an operator and that was a brand was more interested in how they could continue to maintain the relationship with their customer. Because, in one of the words of the speakers they said, when people come into a restaurant, they come in because they're celebrating something they're celebrating a birthday, they're celebrating a promotion, or they're mourning something. They're coming in because it's after a funeral and they don't want to make the food, or it's after some tragic event, or they got fired or they got hired. Either way, whether it's good or whether it's bad, there's this emotional state that people are in when they come into a restaurant and they want a human interaction, and so they threw up all these numbers and statistics to support it. But the idea is that is technology driving us further away from offering real personal transactions, if you will, personal relationships and putting the people back in hospitality. That was the question.
Speaker 1:And so you had this conference that was filled, filled with people that were talking about AI. I swear it felt like every single panel session and every session, every breakout, was about AI. It really was, and this is my first year here and I was later told that it's been like that for three years or something. At FSTech, dude, everybody was talking about AI and it was overwhelming the amount of AI noise at this conference and it really just reminded me of the old adage that it was that it was, you know, the whole hammer looking for a nail thing. And so you had hammer salespeople everywhere trying to sell you the best and the biggest and the brightest and all this stuff. But there was no need, like so many people were just like, dude, there's no big need for this, because what they're trying to do is so far away from that. What they're trying to do is get back to hospitality and get back to the people connection of it. That it's like yeah, you have all this technology, but that's not really where we want to be.
Speaker 1:And so then you ask well, what's the point of having technology at a technology conference? Why did these brands come to a technology conference and a couple of really big things stood out. One of the things that stood out is that it really seemed like the people that were there were yearning for technology that just works, stuff that just does what it's supposed to do. And I asked the question when I was talking to someone about knowing who the manufacturer of the pipes and the convention center are. Nobody cares who the manufacturer of the door lock is, whoever does a good job doing the door lock, and I think that in that space, so many operators and so many brands are looking for technology that just works to be the underlying system. It's as critical as the gas in the stove. It's as critical as the water in the pipes, it's as critical as the plumbing system.
Speaker 1:But it's not something that they're sitting there focusing on. They're not going. Oh my God, hold on. Let me stop and take the time and look at my Wi-Fi access point and look at my router and make sure it does all the things that we need to do. That's not where their focus is, and because that's not where their focus is, any time that that comes up on a budget item or on a bottom line, it's like, ah, why am I paying so much for Wi-Fi, for Wi-Fi? Why am I paying so much for this stuff? That's just supposed to work? Because I got to pay it and I got to pay a license fee and I got to pay an MSP and I have to pay an integrator. I have to pay this person. I have to pay this person just to get the foundational stuff working at my restaurant so that I can focus on the other stuff, like making sure I've got good communication with the people who walk in the door and I need it to work so that the tablet doesn't go down. But people who walk in the door and I need it to work so that the tablet doesn't go down. But you have all these people that are pitching AI and they're like, oh, the AI can do this and it can do that and it can do this and it can do that. But there was not a use case that I heard at FSTech that could be nailed down to something that everyone was like yes, that's what AI is good for.
Speaker 1:Now, a lot of people talked about voice and about how voice was going to be this big thing. And how you know, a couple of years ago it popped up is supposed to be fantastic, but then, as it's made its way into the market space, it's like, well, it was 80% accurate, it was 85% accurate. Now it's 90% accurate. But 90% accuracy means it's 10% inaccurate, and that 10% inevitably is going to be you or it's going to be me at the drive-thru, because it's only going to fail when you want it right. And so is that technology at a space where it's good enough to be used in food service? And if it is, then great.
Speaker 1:But what's the point of using that technology in food service? And so I broke it down in my head in a couple different ways. One you got to have that foundational network that does what the network does, that allows the Wi-Fi, allows the communications, allows the transactions to take place. You have to have it. And if you have to have it and there's ways that you don't have to spend 10 times the amount of money on it, if there's a way that you can do it better, more, cost, effectively, and work with partners who know what they're doing and you're not being charged absorbent fees for licensing and all this other stuff, then that's going to give you budget to do some other really, really cool stuff when it becomes available Some of it's not available today, but when it becomes available. So then we get in these thought sessions where it's like, okay, what does good working AI look like to you in food service?
Speaker 1:If you've followed me at all over my career, I want you to go back and think about what I did at the presentation for Mobility Field Day 8 or Wireless Field Day 8, when I talked about Scrape and about how we were leveraging music in my wife's restaurant to increase the amount of time that people spent inside the restaurant. We changed the playlist dynamically based on who was there, by grabbing their data and running it through an algorithm and changing a Spotify playlist, and it was awesome and we saw an increase of 40% of people that stayed for more than 45 minutes. That was the whole goal of what we did. We leveraged the Wi-Fi infrastructure to make a change to the environment that affected the people that were there in a positive way, so that they stayed longer. This was how many years ago 15 years ago that we were doing that with Airtight. It was a great experiment, but now, finally, people are like, oh, you know what we should do. We should figure out how to use technology to change the environment for people without getting in their face, so that they stay longer. And I'm like how tall to remember that term. Hello and welcome to a long time ago. And it's it's really cool because it's finally right. It's people are finally looking at this, going, oh, how do we do it?
Speaker 1:And and I was listening to a panel and something that my wife said a long time ago when we were doing this is she said there's a there's a thin line between useful and creepy, and and so today my wife and I were having this conversation. We're talking about everything that I learned at the conference and I'm going to give you examples of some of the stuff that came up at the show and how we use it in real world. We went to go grab a coffee today at Dutch brothers and and we're talking about how to use technology, and I said, you know, in a perfect world, one of the examples was when you pull up to the Dutch brothers, imagine if the person who came to your car said hey, drew, welcome back. I see, it's almost your birthday. We've got a discount for you. Do you want the regular thing that you get. Do you want the large mocha? And Jess, I see that you're in the car. Hey, last time you were here you got this. Do you want to try that again or do you want something else?
Speaker 1:And I asked my wife if that would have happened, if they would have been able to customize my experience with them just by pulling up in a car, even though we haven't been there in like two months. Would that have been useful or creepy? And she said you know, I would have immediately thought, hey, their app works. You know, hey, there's something that's working there. And so it made me think you know, is there an opt-in? Imagine there was an opt-in that said hey, next time you come in, is it cool if we call you by name, is it cool if we remember your order so we can give you a better customer experience? And there's a lot of people that would say no, but for the people that would say yes, that's pretty neat to me, and I think that that's that line between useful and creepy. You know, if you have the ability to opt into it.
Speaker 1:Now, if I walked into a store that I had never been to and they walked up and they're like drew, hey, we know you like adidas shoes. We got some adidas on the shelf over here. You're a size 13, you want to go try them on? That would be weird if I'd never been there, but if there, if it was part of a customer interaction, that's kind of cool. And so you think about, in food service, the things that you could imagine that would be helpful to you or useful to you.
Speaker 1:I eat a lot of Whataburger. I love Whataburger. I love Five Guys. I love burgers. What are you going to do, man? And so imagine if, when you pulled in the drive-thru, if it was using camera recognition of my license plate, my vehicle, my face, whatever it is, combined with voice recognition or combined with the fact that my app happens to be there and the GPS is reporting via the app that I'm close to a store, and so there's like a mechanism that says, hey, I am Drew, verified, and they say Drew, welcome back. Do you want, you know, the number four with a large Coke or root beer or sweet tea or whatever I'm drinking? Or if it changed the menu boards to update to my specification, it takes anything with nuts off the menu because it knows my kids have a nut allergy or it. Only you know. It has a focus on the new feature. It's a Dr Pepper shake or whatever. Imagine a world where the AI is doing that on the back end, using that network transport to offer a customer service experience that's really, really elevated and really personal. I can get behind something like that.
Speaker 1:But the problem that I was having at this conference was that people were talking a little bit about some of these future vision things, but the people that were trying to sell the AI weren't the ones talking about the future vision. It was the operators and it was the brands that were saying these are things that we want to do in order to make it more meaningful for our customers. And everybody references Chili's, because I don't know if you know or not, but if you go look at what Chili's has done in the last year, chili's is on a huge comeback. They are on a tear and they're figuring out how to welcome people back into their stores and it's really neat to see. But you had this disconnect where the vendors weren't the ones pitching this. They were pitching some of it, but they weren't pitching the solutions. They were just trying to sell whatever wares they had today. And dude.
Speaker 1:I even heard someone call a point of sale vendor a glorified calculator. They're like look bro, you're just a glorified calculator in my store. You're just adding and subtracting numbers. I need something that provides me customer experience, and so I didn't get my question in to the CEO of PAR, the point of sale system. But my question for him was in the future, when AI has the capability to do all these magical things, I would imagine that the first place you would go to would be the point of sale vendor, because they've got hardware there in the store or they're doing something in the cloud. But if that's the case, it is going to cost more money, and that money has to come from somewhere. It can either come from saving money in one place and reallocating it, or it can come from the operator generating more revenue in order to pay for that AI or those enhancements.
Speaker 1:And that takes me back to what I was thinking about from the infrastructure side. I think it's incumbent upon us, as network nerds and as people who focus on wireless and focus on the infrastructure, to figure out how we can enable technologies like this, like these really cool ideas, in the future. But we have to do it by making our equipment better, more user-friendly, supporting just the need for the transport, the same way that the pipes and the plumbing do. We need to bring it back to a point where and this was controversial right the best thing I think that we can do is make it so that no restaurant knows who we are. They shouldn't know who our vendor is. Now, the people who build the building they know what pipes to buy. The people who are budgeting they know what pipes to buy, but the operator, the store manager and the brand manager it shouldn't even be a thing for them. It should just be like hey, it works, it's working great and it's solving my problem and it's doing exactly what I need it to do. So that was my takeaway on FSTech.
Speaker 1:It was a tug of war between what the brands and the operators were looking for and what the vendors had and what they were trying to get people to adopt, and it just felt like there was a disconnect. And it wasn't even a disconnect. It was like hey, we want to focus on the customer. And they're like, hey, you should really do some AI. And they're like, yeah, but we want to focus on the customer. And they're like, yeah, but we've got this new AI tool, like yeah, but the customer. And they're like, yeah, but AI, and it was. It was really weird to see that back and forth. But you have to have a path to get there. You can't just say new AI components are coming in, they're going to cost you $500 a month per store. You know, pony it up. So that was my takeaway on FSTech.
Speaker 1:I think it was a great show, man, and the people were there having good conversations. I got to meet some incredible people, you know. I got to see the most basic uses of large language models and chat. Gpt, the CEO of Church's Chicken, sat down and said his vision of AI. The most basic vision was they took the operator's manual, the restaurant owner's manual, the manual for the devices and they loaded them all into an LLM so that way if someone had a problem at the store, they didn't have to call the manager, they didn't have to call HR, they didn't have to call someone, they could just look it up and everything was digitized there for them to happen.
Speaker 1:And then, on the exact opposite of what was happening with AI, jamie Denny from Blaze Pizza, let it slip that they're making announcements now in a guest experience person in their restaurants and this is kind of interesting. I wonder if it's a trend that's going to catch on, where, when you come in, it's basically like a concierge or a hostess or a host who, when you walk into Blaze Pizza, they'll help you craft your experience as you're there and their whole job is just to work and interact with the customer. They're not, they're not selling anything, they're not ringing you up, they're not doing any of that. They're there as a concierge to help you go through everything. And that was along those lines of what they could do to be more customer centric. Heard from a bunch of different people about, about what they were doing and how they were doing it.
Speaker 1:Not AI, but recommendation engines at Applebee's and IHOP, where 25% of their users or sales are from off-prem it's people ordering it and going to pick it up but how? 50% of the people who use their app or order online take advantage of the meal recommendation. So it's like, hey, this goes great with a cookie or this goes great with some pasta or a salad, and 50% of the people they're ordering from there are actually using that, which is kind of neat to see. Those are the things that really stood out to me at FSTech. I think it was a great show. I would encourage you if you're in that space, adjacent to that space or thinking about that space, that is definitely on my go-to list. The next one that I'll be at in that space is MarTech. I'll be at the MarTech Executive Summit back in Orlando in October.
Speaker 1:But FSTech, it didn't let me down. It's put on by the same people that do the National Restaurant Association show and that was a killer show as well. But I'm curious to see how this you know this is specific in that restaurant space. So I'm curious to see how this stacks up. Nrf is coming up here pretty soon and NRF is going to have some pretty, some pretty great stuff.
Speaker 1:But the panels were fantastic. The people were great. We got to learn a lot. We got to see a lot. We got to talk to a lot of people. Um learned about Qdoba and what they're doing, and this was interesting. They had their CEO and their marketing person talking about how they work together and the first thing he wanted to do was replace his 20-year-old point-of-sale system. So that was interesting. But FSTech was great. I would encourage you to go if that's what you want to see, but I did want to do a breakdown of it, just because that's what I did this week and I thought it was pretty neat.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'm going out of town tomorrow and I'm going to be gone for like four days. I'm going to go disappear into West Texas for a hot minute and I'll be back next week and I'll try and check the news in between now and then. But up until that, uh, I'm trying to think if I'm going to be in any place to see anybody anytime soon. I don't see. Oh, I don't see anybody. I'm in the man cave with Furnay. Oh, mark, oh, the man cave man. I wish I was there. I've been there. I knocked my head around, doing everything. Hey, look, look, I'm going to. I'm going to pose, I'm going to just show you guys what I saw online. Hold on, give me a second.
Speaker 1:I saw this thing pop up. It was an Instagram ad and I thought this was pretty cool. It's called peppy pulse. Peppy pulse have you guys heard, has anybody ever heard of this Peppy Pulse? You know me, I'm a sucker for a good travel router man.
Speaker 1:Let's see if I can share the screen. Is that it? Yeah, peppy Pulse Premium 5G devices for modern connectivity. Look at this thing, you ready, let's see if it loads. Okay. So look at this little. It's a little 5g all in one thing with a built-in 5,000 milliamp battery, so I thought that was pretty neat.
Speaker 1:That's not the one that that I saw, though. They have this one on Kickstarter. Let's see if it'll load up here. Yeah, look, here it is. Look at this thing. This thing's pretty crazy. Look, isn't that cool looking. It's got. It's like a. It almost looks like an iphone, but it has it's. It looks like a touch screen. It's just a big touch screen with it's called the peppy pulse aura, and it's on kickstarter right now, and I never heard of it, but I asked them if they had a. I was like, hey, do you guys have an influencer program? Listen, it never hurts to ask. Don't make fun of me. I always ask. Sometimes people say yes, sometimes people say no.
Speaker 1:This is calling itself the world's smallest or smartest travel 5g wi-fi hub. It's a 5g mi-fi router extraordinary performance, seamless, seamless connectivity, powerful endurance and compactness. Um, of course, just like everything on the internet says, it just works. Dual sim and e-sim, 5g and 4g touchscreen display, network switching, multiple devices via wi-fi travel ready. Oh, I wonder can you connect an ethernet port with usb? On this one I'm, because that's the thing. That's the reason I love my little GLI stuff. Oh look, it's got a little kickstand on it. Anyway, I thought that was interesting. Oh, you know what? In other news, in other device news, meta announced their new glasses and they're getting some. I mean, apparently I didn't watch the whole thing, but apparently there was a big old glitch at the launch of it. Something happened when they were trying to take a call.
Speaker 1:But what I will tell you is the neural band is part of this and, oh my God, talk about one of the coolest things. So it's a wristband that goes around your wrist. Obviously it's not a wristband that goes around your neck. It's a wristband that goes around your wrist and obviously it's not a wristband that goes around your neck. It's a wristband that goes around your wrist. You put the glasses on. They've got smart displays and they've got cameras. Now, dude, I love my ray-ban meta glasses. I love them. They're so great for taking pictures and video and doing all the things. When you add to that what google glass was supposed to be for all the glass holes out there, this apparently brings all that to reality. But the neural band is the key and what it does is when you wear it around your wrist. I can't remember the the term of what it does.
Speaker 1:Uh, elect, come on, drew electromyography to pick up the signals between your brain and your hand when you're making a gesture, and so this is their new interface. And it goes around your wrist and you do taps and you do like. If you tap with your left hand, it approves something. If you tap with your index finger or pointer finger, it does something. And you tap with your index finger, like your middle finger. When you tap that, it goes back and so you can answer phone calls. You can tap to type, you can you tap that it goes back and so you can answer phone calls. You can tap to type. You can make gestures and, and you know, write letters with your fingers.
Speaker 1:This is pretty crazy and they're $7.99 and they were just introduced, and if any of my friends from meta are listening and you want to slide me a pair, I'm totes down to play with these. I think it would be phenomenal. So I'm happy, I'm super happy for these guys to get to get this product out there and to finally see some of this. Uh, you know, no one really knew what the if it was gonna was it gonna be a wristband, was gonna be a watch, was gonna be wearable, was gonna be something around your neck. No one really knew where that was gonna go. The orion demo was the thing that they those were the big old goofy glasses, but today they actually launched it. Yeah, this had like a little controller thing with it that's the wireless compute puck, but it looks like it's all in one Anyway. So if anybody has one of those, or if anybody at Meta wants to ship me some, I would love to try them out. Anyway, frenet, mark Gibby, everyone listening online. I appreciate you listening and tuning in. I hope you like the breakdown of FSTech. If you want to hear more about it, please reach out to me and let me know what else. I think. That's it.
Speaker 1:It is Thursday, it's raining, I'm going to check and make sure everything's okay with my kids' school and then I'm going to go eat a cheeseburger, because today is National Cheeseburger Day. And if you haven't watched my video about getting a grilled cheese cheeseburger If five guys, I would suggest that you watch that and then go to your closest five guys If you're in Vegas, if you're anywhere else in the world, go hit a Whataburger, go hit an In-N-Out, go grab a burger for National Cheeseburger Day. Today, thursday, september 18th, I believe, today is also National Talk Like a Pirate Day, is it? Or when is it? Oh, it's tomorrow. You heard it here first or second or third. Tomorrow, army mateys, make sure you tell someone to swab the deck.
Speaker 1:September 19th 2025 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Don't forget that is the most important thing that you can take away from this episode is that tomorrow is National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Don't forget that is the most important thing that you can take away from this episode is that tomorrow is National Talk Like a Pirate Day and today is National Cheeseburger Day. Go have a cheeseburger, enjoy the rest of your afternoon. I will talk to you guys when I get back from my little vacay.
