The Internet of Things (IoT) promised a future where everything is connected, but the reality often fell short due to high costs, infrastructure requirements, and power constraints. Ambient IoT seeks to resolve these limitations, enabling item-level connectivity without batteries or complex hardware.
To explore this emerging space, we spoke with Amir Khoshniyati, Head of Strategy and Business Development at Wiliot, whose technology is helping global organisations digitise their supply chains using self-powered, radio wave-harvesting tags.
What is ambient IoT, and how does it differ from traditional IoT?
Ambient IoT is the evolution of the Internet of Things, allowing everyday objects such as pallets, crates, totes, packages, assets, and more to become intelligent, cross-functional, and connected, without requiring batteries or complex infrastructure.
Unlike traditional IoT, which often requires powered devices such as sensors and gateways, ambient IoT uses ultra-low-cost, postage-stamp-sized devices, called IoT Pixels, that harvest energy from existing radio waves, such as RFID, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.
These IoT Pixels continuously transmit data like temperature, location, humidity, light detection, and movement in real time, at item-level scale. This means entire supply chains can be digitised both upstream and downstream to the individual product, without the expense and environmental burden of batteries. The result is a more scalable, sustainable, and pervasive form of IoT that brings visibility to objects that were previously offline.
How is ambient IoT reshaping supply chains and logistics?
Ambient IoT is transforming supply chains by making them fully transparent, automated, and responsive. For the first time, companies can track individual items at a granular level with insights like never before, not just pallets or containers, across their journey, from production to store shelf. Wiliot’s ambient IoT technology enables capabilities such as temperature, location, humidity, light detection, and movement.
This lets businesses ensure cold-chain integrity for perishables such as food and medicine, reduce out-of-stocks, and shrinkage in retail, and cuts waste across industries adding to a more sustainable future. Instead of relying on snapshots or assumptions, supply chains can now operate on live data, driving smarter decisions, and more environmentally friendly outcomes. As a result, ambient IoT is a foundational shift toward a more intelligent and efficient global supply chain.
What are the challenges that have held back adoption of traditional IoT at scale, and does ambient IoT address any of them?
Traditional IoT promised a connected world but what it delivered at scale often fell short. The challenge hasn’t been the vision. It’s been cost, complexity, and coverage.
Deploying traditional IoT at scale requires expensive hardware, constant power, and cumbersome infrastructure. Each asset required tagging, power, and connectivity to be adequately maintained. This ultimately made enterprise-wide visibility a dream deferred rather than a reality achieved.
What are the main markets that ambient IoT will reshape?
Ambient IoT will transform industries where visibility, traceability, scalability, and efficiency are imperative to business success.
The primary markets for ambient IoT include cold chain logistics for perishables such as food – grocers and quick service restaurants, healthcare including pharmaceuticals, retail inventory and replenishment, supply chain and reserve logistics for logistics companies, and product-level in consumer goods.
For example, in food distribution, ambient IoT can help track temperature-sensitive products to reduce spoilage and ensure safety. In QSR environments, ambient IoT can allow for operational consistency at scale, across multiple locations. In retail, ambient IoT technology enables automated inventory management and real-time shelf availability, improving the customer experience, and minimising lost sales.
What role do standards and global regulations play in ambient IoT adoption?
Standards and regulations are playing a foundational role not just in enabling ambient IoT adoption but in accelerating it at scale.
We’re seeing global mandates push industries toward greater traceability, transparency, and accountability. Retailers and supply chain leaders are now required to track product movement and conditions in real time, and ambient IoT is uniquely suited to meet that challenge.
For example, the European Union’s Digital Product Passport (DPP) is reshaping how we think about product lifecycle management. Every product will be expected to carry a dynamic, digital record from manufacturing to recycling and that’s only possible with pervasive, low-cost energy-harvesting sensing like Ambient IoT.
Has Wiliot’s ambient IoT technology been deployed by any customers?
Yes, Wiliot’s technology is already being deployed by some of the world’s largest companies across retail, logistics, food, and healthcare.
In the postal industry, the UK’s Royal Mail is currently leveraging Wiliot’s ambient IoT technology to digitise its vehicles, facilities, and delivery routes, creating end-to-end visibility across its vast postal network. This transformation enables Royal Mail to track its most critical assets in real-time, using data-driven insights to optimise operations. Royal Mail’s visibility initiative is already delivering tangible results. The company successfully tracked over 900,000 rolling mail cages – 10% of which were previously unaccounted for – providing unprecedented insight into the billions of parcels and letters it transports each year. With real-time precision data, Royal Mail is now better equipped to understand its carbon impact, reduce costs, and improve the quality of service for customers.
This article originally appeared in the August’25 magazine issue of Electronic Specifier Design – see ES’s Magazine Archives for more featured publications.
