Simbi is rolling out fixed sensors to augment its inventory robots CHRIS According to Grocery Dive, Simbi Robotics has introduced fixed sensor units to monitor products in targeted areas of grocery and other retail stores that augment the company's Tally aisle scanning robots, the company announced just this past Tuesday.

The new equipment, known as Tally Spot, uses computer vision cameras to identify and analyze items in specific zones that more more frequently than the robots which traverse the entire store.

Tally's Spot, Cindy says, reflects retailers interest in technology to enable them to keep an even closer eye on products that need frequent restocking or have elevated rates of shrink.

Chris why do you think Simbi is rolling out a fixed position sensor to complement its shelf scanning robots that we already know and love?

And so much so that they are also a new sponsor of the Fast 5, might I call it?

Yeah, 100%.

I think they're doing it because it's freaking smart.

It's a smart idea.

And to your point, in full disclosure, like Symbio is now a pod, a sponsor of this podcast on a weekly basis and we're going to do some more work with them.

And as well, we just released a Spotlight series podcast with their CEO Brad Bolia yesterday when this news broke, talking about this very thing.

So again, to your point about Cedric trying to stay on top of it for all you folks that listen to us on a regular basis.

And so the answer to me about why I think this is smartant, it comes down to one word and that's vigilance.

So there are certain areas of the store that you just have to keep a closer eye on that and the robot, as great as it is, is doing it at standard intervals.

So things just move quicker in certain areas than the robot can capture.

So those are things where you have high throughput, like probably fresh produce in some stores.

High theft is also a big issue.

So if you get those running right, the ROI drops to the bottom line pretty quickly.

So here's the use case because I, I queried some friends of mine, I was like, okay, why is this an important use case?

Yeah.

And what they said to me is like you take alcohol, right?

You put a fixed position camera looking at the alcohol and it's, it's basically sending updates, let's say every 15 minutes so that, you know, if in that 15 minute cycle they see that something got hit, something got a ton of product got stolen, they can correlate that back to the pos.

And then the idea then is that the AP teams can get that information.

They can know exactly when to look in the camera systems, the overhead camera systems to try to figure out who's been stealing.

Right.

That's information that doesn't exist without this type of setup.

The other important point here of why this is smart is it's an extension of what Tally the robot does.

The problem with fixed position camera systems is they only are positioned to look at what they look at.

They don't get a 360 view.

And, and so the only way this works if it's complemented with the 360 view of the robot as it's scanning the store to get the full view of everything on the shelf.

And so the fixed position camera then just tells you what's missing or what's moving really quickly.

That's why it's really smart.

It's a product extension and it just widens the market for Brad and the Simbi team.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's, I mean I don't have much more to add.

You, you really hit on all the, the key points and I think that's.

Why I'm so excited to talk about it.

Yes, yes.

Well, I mean in that interview with Brad, I remember spec you talking about, you know, the consistency being a thing.

Like it, you have the level up with the robot because you're getting that real time consistency and you can't get that with human labor.

Like it just doesn't work that way because you have different people on different shifts.

And I think that was the, that was the first thing that I thought of when we read about this announcement.

But I think you also bring up like, I mean you were, you were in a store manager, I worked in stores.

Like you don't get to that stuff until the end of the day or like when somebody comes to you and it's already been done and the, you know, the cashmere sweater table has been wiped clean because somebody like now we're talking every 15 minutes you're able to get some of these, you know, real, truly real time inputs on what's going on in your store.

And I think this is just the beginning for what Simbi and that team is going to be able to unlock with their offering.

Like Tally was already great and now you have Tally Spot coming in.

This is just completely supercharged it, which I think proves that I was wrong and 2024 was just the beginning of in store robotics.

And you were right, Chris.

This 2025 really is going to be the year of the robot.

Yeah, to your point, man, like 15 minutes.

I was just using that as an illustrative example, like, this could essentially get down to real time to APs getting that alert, like, within one or two minutes of it happening and still potentially being able to apprehend or alert authorities in real time that, you know, something's happening.

Now.

There's a whole host of issues that come with.

You know, it's at least leading to a, to a, to a road of new ideas and new ways to tackle the problem.

Yeah, well, and.

And the last thing, too, Chris, that you just made me think of, like, I remember when we were talking to somebody on a past Spotlight series about RFID and how they're finally able to, now that RFID is on more products, they're finally able to give authorities in these communities the information that they need.

Otherwise, it's just.

It's done.

It's like, this will happen in the store.

It's done.

But now, to your point, like, you were talking about, like, time of day, what they took, how many people, all this information, like, that's something that, that local law enforcement can actually follow up on and start to be held accountable to, like, end these types of problems, which is huge.

Yeah.

And Marshall Cage has put out a great article on Forbes.

I encourage everybody to read it about how Walmart's now deploying RFID on items that are less than that are 99 cents or less.

So, like, these are the solutions that are out there that just make so much more sense than putting products behind glass.