Intel is helping Levi's save a ton of money by tracking every movement in a retail store
But these days, the chipmaker sees opportunity everywhere, even in dungarees.
During a keynote at Intel's IoT Insights event on Tuesday, CEO Brian Krzanich said Intel has partnered with Levi's to build a proof of concept technology - built on top of Intel's IoT Platform - at the Levi's Plaza retail store in San Francisco.
Levi's put an RFID tag (a wireless device that can transfer data in real-time) on all of its items in the store, and connected it to Intel's IoT platform, which basically aggregates and sends the data to the cloud.
Once the data is sent to the cloud, Intel's analytics platform can track every movement in the store, from excessive inventory to sold out items that need restocking. Krzanich said every item is tracked for volume and location in real-time, making sure things are in place when the customer needs it and removed when it sees less demand.
Intel's been making headways into the IoT space lately, largely in order to diversify its business that's historically been reliant on the PC chips. Its IoT segment is still small relative to its overall revenue, only generating $581 million last quarter (or 4% of the total $14.4 billion in sales), but Intel has been using it a lot to showcase its technical capability.
Thsi isn't the first time we've heard Levi's working with a Silicon Valley tech firm. In May, Google showed off a pair of "smart jeans" created in partnership with Levi's that connects with the smartphone and lets the user control volume or play music by tapping on part of the fabric.