Zebra Technologies and Atmel Corporation, a leader in microcontroller (MCU) and touch technology solutions, announced it is demonstrating a smart refrigeration Internet of Things (IoT) reference design at NRF 2016 being held on Jan. 17-20, 2016, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. In addition to the latest in low-power silicon and cloud services, this demonstration at booth #1603 will show how products designed with the ARM mbed IoT Device Platform bring improved security and energy efficiency.
 
Consumer demand for fresher, safer food and medication is driving retailers to invest in automatic, non-invasive temperature monitoring of refrigeration units. According to the CDC, 48 million Americans get sick each year from foodborne diseases. Compliance is increasingly necessary with the adoption of the Food Safety Modernization Act.
 
Zebra’s Zatar, the first ARM mbed enabled IoT Cloud Service, offers seamless, out-of-the-box connectivity with any device for both reference designs and commercial-scale solutions. Zebra is working together with silicon partners like Atmel to bring state-of-the-art, IoT reference designs that Fortune 1000 companies can pilot immediately and deploy in-scale to address specific industry pain points like temperature monitoring of perishable goods.
 
The Smart Refrigeration IoT Solution Reference Design provides an easy-to-deploy, cloud-based temperature monitoring solution using wireless sensors, mesh networking technologies and the Zatar IoT Cloud Service.
 
“Managing and recording the temperature of fast-moving, perishable goods is increasingly necessary for a superior, safer customer experience,” said Thomas Kurian, senior director, New Growth Platforms, Zebra Technologies. “Bringing together Atmel’s low-power, mesh technologies with Zatar, our IoT Cloud Service, helps retailers eliminate the cost and inaccuracy of manual recordings and meet compliance requirements.”