The Missing Link Between 5G and Retail IoT

Retail is transforming with the rapid growth of the cloud and the proliferation of intelligent devices. Brands are laser-focused on enhancing customer experiences at their brick and mortar businesses – whether with mobile checkout handhelds, line busting tablets, self-service kiosks, or even augmented and virtuality reality experiences. As retail IoT grows, it’s apparent that existing networks and infrastructure can’t do the job alone when powering these transformative technologies. Customer demands are at an all-time high, and 5G can help retail businesses seize critical competitive advantages. Retailers understand the importance of delivering new customer experiences and that connectivity is key to enabling them. But delivering those experiences to devices in a reliable, repeatable, and robust way is just as important. How do you address this challenge?

Traditionally, the answer has been “build your own infrastructure.” Connected devices are only as good as the systems backing them – all the network capacity in the world can’t fix a bug that takes down a mission critical point of sale; you have to be able to deliver a patch. The broad geographic scope of many device fleets in retail IoT also means that a “small” problem can rapidly become a highly distributed logistical nightmare. This makes the ability to roll back changes, control systems remotely, and manage compliance drift as mission critical as the devices themselves. Modern consumers don’t tolerate downtime, and businesses aren’t able to wait for a technician or spend hours on the phone with support to troubleshoot live systems.

Esper Architect is a full-stack solution that addresses the unique challenges of always-on, always-connected dedicated device fleets (we also have customers in medical, industrial, transportation, and consumer electronics). With Architect, dedicated device fleets become more agile and scalable than ever. Whether you’re operating 10 devices or 500,000, Esper’s unique DevOps for Devices platform can help you deliver delightful experiences to your customers quickly and with confidence.

Architect lets our customers leverage Esper Pipelines to intelligently stage software deployments, down to a single device or up to their entire fleet. Begin rollouts in your device lab, test regionally with select locations, and set your end global deployment conditions. Using individual pipeline stages, you can define the stepping stones with a near-infinite degree of flexibility. And along the way, receive detailed device telemetry and feedback so that you can not just identify issues, but effectively diagnose and even debug them – all fully remotely.

Esper brings proven cloud DevOps principles to your device fleet, resulting in less downtime, increased operations and IT efficiency, and faster time to market for new products and features. Architect customers can truly deploy new software to their device fleets at the speed of innovation: By integrating with powerful existing DevOps tools like Jenkins, you can constantly deliver new code for your next deployment. Devices are always running the most recent version of software because they’re constantly receiving it. And with our Esper Foundation for Android platform based on AOSP, businesses can take their device fleet to the next level with enhanced customization, security, long term update support, and more. Foundation is even compatible with x86 (e.g., Intel) hardware platforms.

Learn more about Esper, Esper Foundation, and Architect here. Interested in partner or reseller opportunities? Reach out directly here.

This content is sponsored by Esper.