September 19, 2025 • 48 mins
The wireless world never stops evolving, and in this episode, Drew Lentz takes us on a journey through the latest developments across multiple technology frontiers. Starting with Apple's intriguing N1 chip introduction, Drew explores what this means for wireless communications and sparks a fascinating discussion about whether Apple might resurrect their once-popular Airport routers. Could this custom silicon be the foundation for Apple's return to networking hardware?
Beyond Apple, the wireless tool landscape continues its rapid evolution. From Sidos unveiling new wall drawing capabilities to Ekahau & Ookla for a groundbreaking "Speed Test Certified" program, vendors are raising the bar through differentiated innovation rather than simply matching features. This certification program particularly resonates as it addresses a long-standing need for verified connectivity validation in public spaces.
The heart of this episode, however, focuses on Drew's revelations from the Food Service Technology Expo (FSTech) in Orlando. Despite being surrounded by AI vendors, restaurant operators consistently steered conversations toward enhancing human connections rather than replacing them with technology. This powerful insight—that people visit restaurants during emotionally significant moments deserving of human interaction—challenges our assumptions about technology's role in hospitality.
Drew articulates a compelling vision where technology should function like reliable plumbing—essential but invisible—enabling memorable human experiences without becoming the focus. The "thin line between useful and creepy" becomes a central theme when discussing personalization, with thoughtful examples of how restaurants might use data to enhance customer experiences while respecting boundaries.
Whether you're a wireless professional, restaurant operator, or technology enthusiast, this episode delivers practical insights about the delicate balance between technological advancement and human connection. As Drew reminds us in his signature straightforward style, the most valuable innovations are those that enhance relationships rather than replace them.
Thanks to our sponsors: Helium & meter Networks!
🤑Looking for ways to monetize your network? Check out helium.com!
💡Change everything you thought you knew about networking at meter.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up.
What's up everybody.
Drew Lentz, wireless Nerd.
Today is September 18th.
It's a Thursday, it's a thirstyThursday, it's a fabulous
Thursday, it's a fun-filledThursday afternoon.
I hope everybody's having agreat Thursday.
I hope everybody had a greatweek this week.
It's been fantastic.
I've been out of town a wholebunch this week working on some
(00:22):
projects and going out to attendsome trade shows, and I think
that that's where I want tofocus.
This week is in the foodservice space.
Before I get into that, acouple of things.
One Apple introduced the N1.
And the N1, once it wasintroduced, there were some
conversations that took place onLinkedIn back and forth, some
(00:42):
people worked at Apple, somepeople who worked at different
manufacturers talking about theN1 and its capabilities.
And is it four by four?
Is it two by two?
It looks like it's two by two.
I could be wrong.
I don't know if there's aspecific spec on it right now.
You know I posted, so I sawthis thing that was a webpage on
(01:05):
applecom and it showed what itwas, and then I go to click on
it and it's gone.
And I was like, well, dude, andso Klaus and I were going back
and forth, mr Klaus heading, wewere going back and forth trying
to find out where it was likewhat, the what, the final say on
it if it was two by two.
And so I'm going to'm gonna,I'm gonna scroll through this
(01:26):
real quick and see if I can findit.
But the n1 chip, essentiallywhat happened was apple decided
to make their own silicone whenit came to communication.
So all the wirelesscommunications on side, uh,
inside that iphone, the newiphone, are running across their
own chip, which is kind of coolfor them.
I mean, uh, I I think it's neat.
They got away from, you know,working with the traditional
(01:48):
vendors that are out there inspace and they brought
everything in on their own.
And that was pretty, prettyneat.
But the question was was itgoing to work with everything
that we needed to work with?
So, is it going to work in theindustry?
Is the N1 chip going to supportwhat we need?
And so slowly things arestarting to come out.
Is it going to work in theindustry?
Is the in one chip going tosupport what we need?
And so slowly things arestarting to come out.
Like it's not 320 megahertz atlaunch, right, it's 160
(02:09):
megahertz.
Um, it looks like it is a twoby two.
Device that's out.
There is it, you know.
Is it going to be upgradable?
Is what?
What is the status of that chipgoing to be?
And then the other magicquestion.
Tom's hardware asked thequestion.
Let's see if I can bring up thearticle.
They asked the question aboutthe N1.
(02:37):
Check this out, oh, tom, yeah.
So Tom's Guide right here.
Let's flip this screen overreal quick.
Let's open this thing up andsee what I can show you here.
And where's my little windowcapture?
It always takes me a minutewhen I first get started you
guys doing that.
Look at this, look at what thisthing's saying right here.
So in Tom's guide it's sayingget out of here with this.
(03:00):
Apple could make Wi-Fi just workwith a new airport router and
Apple Silicon could be themissing puzzle piece.
So this made its way around theslack, the slack circuits and
the discord circuits where itwas like, well, wait a minute.
If they're cranking out theirnew in one chip set and it's
their chip set could this be therebirth of airport?
And you know people are excitedabout that.
(03:21):
However, it doesn't look likethat's really the case.
I mean, they haven't made anyannouncements, they haven't
hinted at that.
There's nothing out there,there's no compelling story that
says that they're going to doit.
So are they capable of doing it?
Yeah, I mean, they'd done itbefore the airport extreme.
It was a great access point.
If you recall, when our buddy,keith Parsons, was doing the big
(03:46):
Wi-Fi bake-off a bunch of yearsago in a classroom with all the
laptops and tablets laid acrossthe table, he put that thing
out there and when he waswaiting for the test to come
through, he turned on hisairport and it did better than
the other access points in theroom, which was hilarious.
So that's kind of cool.
Oh, what's up.
Look, there's people listening.
Yeah, so that's kind of cool.
(04:11):
Oh, what's up.
Look, there's people listening.
Um, yeah, so so there's that.
Uh, that they, you know theydid it, but it looks like in
here you know that that endedbefore, and so it said well, you
know if, if apple's airportcame back, they could take a
similar approach, and here's allthe great things they could do.
And it was like well, you know,is there a market for that that
they want to get into?
We don't know.
And so it goes on to talk aboutthe N1 in this thread, with
Wi-Fi 7, with Bluetooth 6, withsupport for Thread, with all
(04:34):
these things that are in there.
And then it was kind of cool tosee this.
If you scroll down right there,it says as close as you can get
to an Apple and it's got theEero product.
Yeah, pretty sick, so shout outto the Euro team.
That's pretty dope to see thaton there.
But it begs the question Do youthink that that's something
that these guys want to get backinto?
I don't know, there hasn't beenevidence of it.
(04:55):
Hopefully Apple's Wi-Fi GibbyCaro says, hopefully Apple's
Wi-Fi has been updated, at leastfor Samsung devices.
Yeah, for Samsung devices.
Yeah, there's some stuff, man,I bet.
If I just look up Apple 17 Wi-Fiissues, I wonder if there's
anything going on here.
Ios 7, that's iOS 17.
That's a little bit older, butyou know we'll see where it goes
(05:18):
.
And so let's see what the N1,apple MIMO.
Let's Google this and see whathappens.
Oh, look, is AI going to tellus what's going on here?
Whoa, look at that.
Ai hooked us up Wi-Fi 7.
Yeah, there you go.
2x2, 5g and 4x4.
Wow, I love this.
You know, ai is something I dowant to talk about here in a
(05:40):
minute, but not in this context,kind of in this context, but
not really.
So there you go, that'sinteresting.
I thought that that wassomething that we definitely
needed to touch on real quickwas the N1 chip and what the
future that goes to Some otherthings that are happening in the
industry.
Cytos made some announcementsthey had a webinar that I didn't
get a chance to tune into, sohopefully maybe we can get Mika
or get someone on the horn hereto talk about some of the new
(06:03):
stuff that they have going on.
But basically they teased outWhere's my little screen share?
They teased out right here newwall drawing, tools for
intuitive controls, richervisuals, flexible floor plan
management, enhanced AP control,defined mount type, azimuth and
attributes, directly or via CSV, which is kind of helpful for a
lot of us.
Streamlined workflows uh,extrapolation there so you can
(06:26):
build your own settings andsneak peek of the new micro app.
So I didn't get to see it, so Idon't even know what the micro
app is.
I haven't even had a chance totune in.
So if you're listening fromcdos or cytos and you saw what
was going on there, please reachout and post it.
See if anybody posts anythingin the comments here.
No, nothing.
Excellent presentation.
Uh, super agile projectdevelopment, yeah, but man, I
didn't get to see what the dangold thing was, so that's kind of
(06:49):
a bummer.
But they've got some newannouncements that are coming
out there and I wanted tohighlight that because it's
really.
It's just so cool to see theinnovation in the tool space
happening and then happening andhappening again, you know, and
what's really cool is to seethat, instead of all just
innovating at the same time,doing the same things, ekahau is
innovating in one way withOokla right, and we're going to
(07:11):
talk about that here in a secondand CEDOS is innovating in
their own way, and then Haminais innovating just across the
board in all these differentways.
But they're all doing it alittle bit different, a little
bit more unique, and at the sametime you've got NetAlly in the
background bit different, alittle bit more unique, and at
the same time you got NetAlly,you know, in the background.
So hopefully there'll be someannouncement from NetAlly soon.
I know that they're alwaysworking on something, so we'll
see where they go, but the barjust keeps getting raised over
(07:32):
and over and over again.
So that was pretty neat to see.
I'm glad that they're doingthat, and the thing that I want
to talk about from Ookla waskind of interesting because, um,
or from you know, eckhau anducla, because they launched a
program which was something that.
That it's.
(07:53):
It's like I like I don't wantto say I like I don't even want
to say it because you know it'sdumb when you start talking
about stuff that you could have,could have, would have shoulda.
Um, a while back, a long timeago, uh, I had some great
conversations with some oldfriends and some old co-workers
about building a tool that justcreated a basic score of how
(08:14):
everything worked and Iregistered the domain name and
it's called NetScore and I madethe graphics and I started to
build the app and did all thethings and life got in the way
and the whole concept was canyou score a system, can you
score a network based ondifferent attributes, and then
update that score and share thatscore so that people can view
(08:36):
it, but validated by a thirdparty, and it was like, yeah,
man, maybe someday that'llhappen, it'll be pretty cool to
see that, and we never didanything with it and I don't
know that anybody did anythingwith it.
And now, finally, you see whatyou see.
He says Not, you see.
(08:57):
But you see what's going on andI'm trying to load up the page
as I'm talking here.
Check this out, man on.
And I'm trying to load up thepage as I'm talking here.
Check this out, ma'am.
So so matt and stew andeveryone's tweeting this stuff
speed test certified forwireless excellence.
Now, I haven't looked into thiswhole thing, but the concept is
(09:17):
I understand it and this iswhat says matt here's shown off
that it's a way to verifyconnectivity and quality at any
venue.
Later in the week, our globalUGLA marketing team got together
in person.
We ran into poor Wi-Fi atairports, conference rooms and
even restaurants.
This is exactly why speed testcertification matters.
So this is a way to take theonline scores from UGLA and give
(09:38):
them a plaque either a virtualplaque or a physical plaque to
show people that it's a verifiedconnection, that it works the
way it's supposed to, based onspeed test, you know, based on
speed testnet speed test thateverybody uses and that Ookla
uses.
So this is really, really neatto see because it's a way to
verify that speeds are gettingwhat they are.
Now I'm not going to go intodetail on what I would have done
(09:59):
with it, I'm just going to seeif they do what I thought that
they were going to do and whatmy old friend, david, thought
that they were going to do atthe time.
There was a really cool marketfor this, but I don't want to
give it away, like you know, notbecause I'm going to do
anything with it, just because Iwant to watch and see if they
do what I hope that they do.
It would be pretty neat.
So I'm excited, I'm stoked tosee this, just because it's
(10:23):
really cool to see when they dothis test.
I don't know what the processlooks like for this and I don't
know what someone has to do togo through the certification to
get the plaque, but once thisgets rolled out, it's going to
be pretty neat to see across theboard whether it's a digital
pendant that someone can put ontheir website for their hotel or
whatnot, or if it's an actualplaque that goes inside their
(10:46):
building, like the one that yousee on the screen.
So kudos to them for doing that.
And again, it's just anotherway that innovation happens, and
I think that the key there isit's not just about the
innovation happening byproviding a plaque, but what can
we do in our jobs every day sothat we can design networks that
(11:06):
meet those rigorousqualifications or those rigorous
standards.
And this reminds me about whatyou know what Wi-Fi was doing
before, where you had Wi-Ficertified homes and there
weren't, if I recall, thereweren't a lot of vendors that
participated in that and thereweren't a lot of home builders
that participated in it.
There were a couple of them Idon't remember the names, it was
(11:29):
Lenar and someone else.
There were two of the largerhome builders in the United
States.
But the goal was how do youtake a floor plan or a blueprint
design around it and get thatto be certified by the Wi-Fi
Alliance, certified as a Wi-Fiready home or Wi-Fi usable home?
So when you think about that,it's the idea that you and I you
who's listening or watching youcan have the ability to help
(11:52):
your customers build somethingthat can get quote unquote
stamped in a way that's going togive them the ability to
provide that Wi-Fi excellence asdeemed acceptable by Ookla.
The problem is is that there's alot of things that are out of
your control.
So I get where it's going, butI'm also a little like hesitant,
because there's a lot of stuffthat happens day to day in a
(12:14):
facility that changes thedynamics of the RF, you know so.
So kudos to them for doing it.
I think it's a really goodproject and I think in
controlled environments it canbe really neat, um, but I'm
curious to see how how itcontinuously evolves.
Obviously, if there was asensor there or something that
was deployed that was constantlychecking the wi-fi and
(12:34):
reporting that data back in realtime, and instead of a plaque
on the wall, maybe it's adigital display that shows what
it is versus some type of staticcomponent.
A couple thoughts there, anyway.
So, either way, that's prettyneat.
Yeah, so that was happening.
Now something else happened thisweek which was fascinating.
(12:56):
Keith, going back to Keith, mrParsons, as Mr Frenet calls him
Mr Parsons ran a survey on hisLinkedIn and he asked what tool
people use to communicate onsocial media, and he got a
fairly decent response, and so,like any nerd, what I did is I
(13:18):
didn't want to read everything,so I opened up Claude from
Anthropic and I had it analyzethe responses to Keith's
LinkedIn post so that I couldsee some numbers and metrics and
then dig into some actualanalysis based on the people
that responded to it.
So this is kind of interesting,so I thought I'd share those
(13:38):
responses with you.
So, keith, in your LinkedInpost you asked how people
communicate on social media.
You asked what tools people use, and so I had this thing
analyzed.
So your top platform rankings,as determined by the wireless
industry, linkedin represents82.4% of the responses that
(13:59):
responded to Keith's LinkedInpost based on what they use.
That responded to Keith'sLinkedIn post based on what they
used.
82.4% said LinkedIn is theirnumber one go-to for social
media, and a lot of it has to dowith work.
58% of the people thatresponded were wireless
professionals multiple CW&Es inthere, a strong presence of
802.11 networks professionalsthat were in there.
(14:20):
Second was YouTube and Slack.
They were tied at 52.9% and Xdropped down to 47%.
And it's interesting because alot of us used X for a really
long time.
We used, um, we used Twitterfor a really long time to
communicate everything that wasgoing on, and and it just got to
the point let me see if I canload this up got to the point
(14:42):
where there you go, where wewere.
Uh, oops, wrong one, thescreen's open, we.
It got to the point where wewere.
Oh, there, it is sorry aboutthat, there we go whatever.
It got to the point where, uh,where no one was using it, just,
and I don't know why.
I don't like it because, dude,honestly, because I open it up
and it's filled with a bunch ofstuff I don't want to read.
(15:03):
So, so, up at the top, insteadof going for you, I just change
it to following, and that's whatI read on X now, because I
don't really care about anythingelse when I'm looking at it.
I'm not trying to get news fromit, I'm trying to keep updated
with what my friends are doing.
So, x and Twitter 47%.
Industry concentration, 58% arewireless.
I asked if there was a responsein gender, like if males versus
(15:24):
females used one versus another.
There were five femaleresponses 29.4.
And this was kind ofinteresting.
They emphasized strategic,purpose-driven approach.
Minimizing distractions,maximizing effectiveness was the
whole idea, and so key genderdifferences Women were looking
for longer, more explanatoryresponses with strategic
reasoning, and men were likelonger, more explanatory,
responsible, strategic reasoning, and men were like more list,
(15:47):
focused.
Women looking for the context,dependent, audience focused,
strategic men, function,specific, efficiency, focused,
categorical.
So I thought that was kind offunny man.
Um, the other thing that was inthere was about blue sky and in
in some of the first ones, bluesky wasn't even mentioned.
Reddit was mentioned.
(16:07):
In there a little bit, here wego.
Here's the big, the big one.
So 11 mentions at first ofLinkedIn and X, youtube, slack,
reddit, discord, blue sky,mastodon, tick the Joel I'm
convinced that Joel Crane is theonly person that's actually
using Mastodon or blue sky and Ithink even freaking, you know,
hollingsworth is the only guythat's on blue sky.
Dude, like why not Dude anotherplatform?
(16:30):
I don't, I can't even man, youknow.
Uh, discord, I I guess I expecthim more discord, but all of us
are pretty slack heavy.
I mean kudos to the, to theWi-Fi Pro's Slack channel that's
on there.
Maybe that has a lot to do withit, but I don't know it's.
50% of respondents were intechnology and engineering, 35%
in business and strategy.
(16:51):
Platform categories, linkedindominates 78.6, and actually
rose after I re-ran it.
And then the key communicationtools Slack and Discord, but
nothing else was reallymentioned.
So anyway, I thought that wasfascinating.
That was a fun thing to runthrough.
Ai, I agree, mark and everyone.
I do linkedin, I pop on linkedinand I don't like to see content
(17:15):
on linkedin that's not relatedto business or work or jobs or
people talking about the thingsthat they're doing.
I don't like to see that stuffon there.
I don't like to see anythingother than that.
That's exactly what I use it.
If I want to hear politicalopinions and I want to hear
people going rants and whatever,then I'll get on Facebook, I'll
get all over Facebook, but keepthat stuff off of LinkedIn,
please, please, please, allright, what else I think that's
(17:41):
about it?
That's all of those things Iwant to talk about.
There's some conferences comingup Mobile World Congress, las
Vegas 2025 is coming up prettysoon that's October 14th and
15th.
And what other shows?
Ces?
Obviously, wlpc.
Oh, call for Papers is open forWLPC.
If you want to present at theWLPC, then I encourage you to
(18:06):
jump on the website and look upthe Call for Papers and put your
information in there, becauseit's coming up soon and this is
the perfect time to do it.
So, phoenix 2025, the call forpresentations is up.
The screen is at the WLPCcomand if you go there, you can
(18:27):
learn more about it.
Registration opens on the 15thand if you hit call for
presentations right here oh man,look at that, dude Friends you
can get in here and you can findsome information.
Where is it?
Oh, there it is.
Submit your proposal.
There you go.
So let's see what happens.
It opens up a little air tablething and oh, I'm on the wrong
(18:48):
screen.
Sorry about that.
If you're watching at home, ifyou're playing along at home, I
totally messed that one up andthen I minimized it.
No, that's not the right one.
You know, one of these daysI'll learn how to computer
properly.
Oh, it just all disappeared forme.
That's pretty neat.
Anyway, let me go back overhere.
So the call for papers is open.
If you want to get in there,just go to thewlpccom.
(19:10):
You can learn all about what togo in there.
You fill in your first name,last name, your company, link to
a bio page about you, put inyour presentation title and a
descriptive, a descriptive um250 character limit paragraph.
Now you get to choose whetheryou want to do a presentation, a
deep dive or a bootcamp.
I suggest that, whatever youwant to do, put it in there and
let's see what happens.
It's going to be a good year.
26 is going to be a good year.
(19:31):
The conference is the 17ththrough 19th.
The bootcamps are the 14ththrough 16th.
I just realized that isFebruary 14th through 19th, whoa
Well, it's going to be somelove at the boot camps,
valentine's Day is happening, sothat's what's going on there
Now.
(19:51):
What I want to talk about alittle bit more in depth is
FSTech, and FSTech is the foodservice technology.
Let me see if I can fix thisthing again here.
It's the Food ServiceTechnology Expo and it just took
place this past week in Orlandoat the Gaylord Palms in Orlando
(20:15):
in Florida, and it was ameeting of a bunch of different
people in food service and Iattended for the first time.
I'd never been to FSTech beforeand I got the chance to go and
I went and it was expensive.
It was $5,000 to register toget in there.
I think we got a special dealon it, but it was not cheap and
(20:36):
I was skeptical.
I'm not going to lie.
I was totally skeptical becauseI thought, well, it's a lot of
money and it's, you know, timeaway.
It's on a freaking.
I had to fly out on Saturday andspend a Sunday out there and,
dude, I hate traveling on theweekends.
I really hate traveling on theweekends.
I really try not to do it.
But I was like.
You know, I'm going to see whatit's like, and so I went, so I
(21:03):
jumped on the plane and I wentout there and I attended and,
wow, it was way better than Ithought it was going to be and I
didn't think it was going to bebad.
Let me be 100% clear I didn'tthink it was going to be bad.
It was just way better than Ithought it was going to be.
And it was a great crowd and itwas filled with wonderful
people and and the crews thatwere there were were phenomenal,
(21:26):
and so I I snapped a lot ofphotos.
I, you know, I put everythingout on on, uh, on Twitter I
still use Twitter as kind of asmy main go-to there Right, and
so it kicked off uh, grace Lear,this, this, this wonderful
person, did a, did a song at thebeginning, and it was kind of
interesting to kick it offbecause it was BMI, the, the,
(21:47):
the music group, that talkedabout how restaurants and retail
facilities are so important inthe lives of artists.
Because I don't know if you knowthis or not, but when you own a
, a place, a store that thepublic is attending, the public
can attend, and you're playingmusic, you have to become a
member of BMI.
If not, they can fine you likeall kinds of different ways, but
(22:08):
if you become a member of BMI,you can play like whatever you
want.
You get the license.
You can play any of the musicthat's in there.
Usually they stick a sticker onthe door that says that you're
good to go a sticker on the doorthat says that you're good to
go.
But I had never thought abouthow much money is made off of
that, off of those royalties,and how that actually makes its
way to the artist.
So Grace did a really good jobexplaining that, and then the
(22:29):
president of BMI came out andtalked a little bit about that
also.
So that was pretty neat to seeBefore that check this out, man.
So if you're looking on thevideo feed before that, when I
went to go check in, they hadthis whole crowd-connected thing
and I was like, oh cool, it'slike an RFID tracker, an NFC
tracker or something.
And I looked around and theyhad sensors like every 20 feet
(22:50):
across the whole facility at theGaylord Convention Center, and
the lanyard that they give youwas obnoxious dude.
That they give you wasobnoxious dude it was.
It had this huge plastic thingon it that I immediately took
apart because I wanted to seewhat they were doing.
It ends up it's just a chipsetand a battery.
I'm pretty sure it was NFC.
Uh, I don't.
(23:10):
I.
I really should have brought myflipper with me so I could have
cloned it or played with it orhad some fun, but I wasn't.
I wasn't there to do that.
I was there to meet with somepeople and see what I could
learn about the conference.
So a little PCB antenna, I toreit apart, I disassembled it and
I reassembled it and then Istuck it in my bag because I
wasn't going to wear it aroundmy neck and I was like I'm going
to cover up my QR code, whichis dumb.
(23:32):
You guys aren't going to jumpinto Orlando and go pretend you
were me, anyway.
So FSTech kicked off and I wantto go through it real quick.
So you had, at first you had apanel and it was the CEO of
Habit Burger, the head oftechnology for Jollibee, the
head of marketing for LettuceEats, and then it was the CEO of
(23:52):
Main Squeeze Juice Company andshe gave me a shot of juice
which was like ginger andcayenne and whatever.
Oh, holy moly that thing.
Just like wow, I mean, it wokeme up.
It was pretty crazy and thefirst panel really set the tone,
I feel like, for the rest ofthe show.
So this was my big takeaway.
My hot take at FSTech was thatthe elephant in the room was
(24:17):
about how to increase customerrelationships and hospitality.
In hospitality, for as muchtechnology that was there, for
as much AI that was there and asmuch innovation in point of
sale and marketing and all theother stuff, every person there
that was an operator and thatwas a brand was more interested
(24:40):
in how they could continue tomaintain the relationship with
their customer.
Because, in one of the words ofthe speakers they said, when
people come into a restaurant,they come in because they're
celebrating something they'recelebrating a birthday, they're
celebrating a promotion, orthey're mourning something.
They're coming in because it'safter a funeral and they don't
want to make the food, or it'safter some tragic event, or they
(25:03):
got fired or they got hired.
Either way, whether it's goodor whether it's bad, there's
this emotional state that peopleare in when they come into a
restaurant and they want a humaninteraction, and so they threw
up all these numbers andstatistics to support it.
But the idea is that istechnology driving us further
away from offering real personaltransactions, if you will,
(25:28):
personal relationships andputting the people back in
hospitality.
That was the question.
And so you had this conferencethat was filled, filled with
people that were talking aboutAI.
I swear it felt like everysingle panel session and every
session, every breakout, wasabout AI.
It really was, and this is myfirst year here and I was later
told that it's been like thatfor three years or something.
(25:50):
At FSTech, dude, everybody wastalking about AI and it was
overwhelming the amount of AInoise at this conference and it
really just reminded me of theold adage that it was that it
was, you know, the whole hammerlooking for a nail thing.
And so you had hammersalespeople everywhere trying to
(26:11):
sell you the best and thebiggest and the brightest and
all this stuff.
But there was no need, like somany people were just like, dude
, there's no big need for this,because what they're trying to
do is so far away from that.
What they're trying to do isget back to hospitality and get
back to the people connection ofit.
That it's like yeah, you haveall this technology, but that's
(26:32):
not really where we want to be.
And so then you ask well, what'sthe point of having technology
at a technology conference?
Why did these brands come to atechnology conference and a
couple of really big thingsstood out.
One of the things that stoodout is that it really seemed
like the people that were therewere yearning for technology
that just works, stuff that justdoes what it's supposed to do.
(26:53):
And I asked the question when Iwas talking to someone about
knowing who the manufacturer ofthe pipes and the convention
center are.
Nobody cares who themanufacturer of the door lock is
, whoever does a good job doingthe door lock, and I think that
in that space, so many operatorsand so many brands are looking
for technology that just worksto be the underlying system.
(27:15):
It's as critical as the gas inthe stove.
It's as critical as the waterin the pipes, it's as critical
as the plumbing system.
But it's not something thatthey're sitting there focusing
on.
They're not going.
Oh my God, hold on.
Let me stop and take the timeand look at my Wi-Fi access
point and look at my router andmake sure it does all the things
that we need to do.
That's not where their focus is, and because that's not where
(27:35):
their focus is, any time thatthat comes up on a budget item
or on a bottom line, it's like,ah, why am I paying so much for
Wi-Fi, for Wi-Fi?
Why am I paying so much forthis stuff?
That's just supposed to work?
Because I got to pay it and Igot to pay a license fee and I
got to pay an MSP and I have topay an integrator.
I have to pay this person.
I have to pay this person justto get the foundational stuff
(27:55):
working at my restaurant so thatI can focus on the other stuff,
like making sure I've got goodcommunication with the people
who walk in the door and I needit to work so that the tablet
doesn't go down.
But people who walk in the doorand I need it to work so that
the tablet doesn't go down.
But you have all these peoplethat are pitching AI and they're
like, oh, the AI can do thisand it can do that and it can do
this and it can do that.
But there was not a use casethat I heard at FSTech that
could be nailed down tosomething that everyone was like
(28:18):
yes, that's what AI is good for.
Now, a lot of people talkedabout voice and about how voice
was going to be this big thing.
And how you know, a couple ofyears ago it popped up is
supposed to be fantastic, butthen, as it's made its way into
the market space, it's like,well, it was 80% accurate, it
was 85% accurate.
Now it's 90% accurate.
But 90% accuracy means it's 10%inaccurate, and that 10%
(28:41):
inevitably is going to be you orit's going to be me at the
drive-thru, because it's onlygoing to fail when you want it
right.
And so is that technology at aspace where it's good enough to
be used in food service?
And if it is, then great.
But what's the point of usingthat technology in food service?
And so I broke it down in myhead in a couple different ways.
One you got to have thatfoundational network that does
(29:03):
what the network does, thatallows the Wi-Fi, allows the
communications, allows thetransactions to take place.
You have to have it.
And if you have to have it andthere's ways that you don't have
to spend 10 times the amount ofmoney on it, if there's a way
that you can do it better, more,cost, effectively, and work
with partners who know whatthey're doing and you're not
being charged absorbent fees forlicensing and all this other
(29:24):
stuff, then that's going to giveyou budget to do some other
really, really cool stuff whenit becomes available Some of
it's not available today, butwhen it becomes available.
So then we get in these thoughtsessions where it's like, okay,
what does good working AI looklike to you in food service?
If you've followed me at allover my career, I want you to go
(29:48):
back and think about what I didat the presentation for
Mobility Field Day 8 or WirelessField Day 8, when I talked
about Scrape and about how wewere leveraging music in my
wife's restaurant to increasethe amount of time that people
spent inside the restaurant.
We changed the playlistdynamically based on who was
there, by grabbing their dataand running it through an
(30:08):
algorithm and changing a Spotifyplaylist, and it was awesome
and we saw an increase of 40% ofpeople that stayed for more
than 45 minutes.
That was the whole goal of whatwe did.
We leveraged the Wi-Fiinfrastructure to make a change
to the environment that affectedthe people that were there in a
positive way, so that theystayed longer.
This was how many years ago 15years ago that we were doing
(30:29):
that with Airtight.
It was a great experiment, butnow, finally, people are like,
oh, you know what we should do.
We should figure out how to usetechnology to change the
environment for people withoutgetting in their face, so that
they stay longer.
And I'm like how tall toremember that term.
Hello and welcome to a longtime ago.
And it's it's really coolbecause it's finally right.
(30:52):
It's people are finally lookingat this, going, oh, how do we
do it?
And and I was listening to apanel and something that my wife
said a long time ago when wewere doing this is she said
there's a there's a thin linebetween useful and creepy, and
and so today my wife and I werehaving this conversation.
We're talking about everythingthat I learned at the conference
and I'm going to give youexamples of some of the stuff
that came up at the show and howwe use it in real world.
(31:14):
We went to go grab a coffeetoday at Dutch brothers and and
we're talking about how to usetechnology, and I said, you know
, in a perfect world, one of theexamples was when you pull up
to the Dutch brothers, imagineif the person who came to your
car said hey, drew, welcome back.
I see, it's almost yourbirthday.
(31:35):
We've got a discount for you.
Do you want the regular thingthat you get.
Do you want the large mocha?
And Jess, I see that you're inthe car.
Hey, last time you were hereyou got this.
Do you want to try that againor do you want something else?
And I asked my wife if thatwould have happened, if they
would have been able tocustomize my experience with
them just by pulling up in a car, even though we haven't been
there in like two months.
Would that have been useful orcreepy?
(31:56):
And she said you know, I wouldhave immediately thought, hey,
their app works.
You know, hey, there'ssomething that's working there.
And so it made me think youknow, is there an opt-in?
Imagine there was an opt-inthat said hey, next time you
come in, is it cool if we callyou by name, is it cool if we
remember your order so we cangive you a better customer
experience?
And there's a lot of peoplethat would say no, but for the
people that would say yes,that's pretty neat to me, and I
(32:19):
think that that's that linebetween useful and creepy.
You know, if you have theability to opt into it.
Now, if I walked into a storethat I had never been to and
they walked up and they're likedrew, hey, we know you like
adidas shoes.
We got some adidas on the shelfover here.
You're a size 13, you want togo try them on?
That would be weird if I'dnever been there, but if there,
if it was part of a customerinteraction, that's kind of cool
(32:40):
.
And so you think about, in foodservice, the things that you
could imagine that would behelpful to you or useful to you.
I eat a lot of Whataburger.
I love Whataburger.
I love Five Guys.
I love burgers.
What are you going to do, man?
And so imagine if, when youpulled in the drive-thru, if it
was using camera recognition ofmy license plate, my vehicle, my
face, whatever it is, combinedwith voice recognition or
(33:01):
combined with the fact that myapp happens to be there and the
GPS is reporting via the appthat I'm close to a store, and
so there's like a mechanism thatsays, hey, I am Drew, verified,
and they say Drew, welcome back.
Do you want, you know, thenumber four with a large Coke or
root beer or sweet tea orwhatever I'm drinking?
Or if it changed the menuboards to update to my
(33:23):
specification, it takes anythingwith nuts off the menu because
it knows my kids have a nutallergy or it.
Only you know.
It has a focus on the newfeature.
It's a Dr Pepper shake orwhatever.
Imagine a world where the AI isdoing that on the back end,
using that network transport tooffer a customer service
experience that's really, reallyelevated and really personal.
(33:44):
I can get behind something likethat.
But the problem that I washaving at this conference was
that people were talking alittle bit about some of these
future vision things, but thepeople that were trying to sell
the AI weren't the ones talkingabout the future vision.
It was the operators and it wasthe brands that were saying
(34:05):
these are things that we want todo in order to make it more
meaningful for our customers.
And everybody referencesChili's, because I don't know if
you know or not, but if you golook at what Chili's has done in
the last year, chili's is on ahuge comeback.
They are on a tear and they'refiguring out how to welcome
people back into their storesand it's really neat to see.
But you had this disconnectwhere the vendors weren't the
(34:27):
ones pitching this.
They were pitching some of it,but they weren't pitching the
solutions.
They were just trying to sellwhatever wares they had today.
And dude.
I even heard someone call apoint of sale vendor a glorified
calculator.
They're like look bro, you'rejust a glorified calculator in
my store.
You're just adding andsubtracting numbers.
I need something that providesme customer experience, and so I
(34:48):
didn't get my question in tothe CEO of PAR, the point of
sale system.
But my question for him was inthe future, when AI has the
capability to do all thesemagical things, I would imagine
that the first place you wouldgo to would be the point of sale
vendor, because they've gothardware there in the store or
they're doing something in thecloud.
But if that's the case, it isgoing to cost more money, and
(35:12):
that money has to come fromsomewhere.
It can either come from savingmoney in one place and
reallocating it, or it can comefrom the operator generating
more revenue in order to pay forthat AI or those enhancements.
And that takes me back to what Iwas thinking about from the
infrastructure side.
I think it's incumbent upon us,as network nerds and as people
(35:32):
who focus on wireless and focuson the infrastructure, to figure
out how we can enabletechnologies like this, like
these really cool ideas, in thefuture.
But we have to do it by makingour equipment better, more
user-friendly, supporting justthe need for the transport, the
same way that the pipes and theplumbing do.
We need to bring it back to apoint where and this was
(35:57):
controversial right the bestthing I think that we can do is
make it so that no restaurantknows who we are.
They shouldn't know who ourvendor is.
Now, the people who build thebuilding they know what pipes to
buy.
The people who are budgetingthey know what pipes to buy, but
the operator, the store managerand the brand manager it
(36:18):
shouldn't even be a thing forthem.
It should just be like hey, itworks, it's working great and
it's solving my problem and it'sdoing exactly what I need it to
do.
So that was my takeaway onFSTech.
It was a tug of war between whatthe brands and the operators
were looking for and what thevendors had and what they were
trying to get people to adopt,and it just felt like there was
(36:42):
a disconnect.
And it wasn't even a disconnect.
It was like hey, we want tofocus on the customer.
And they're like, hey, youshould really do some AI.
And they're like, yeah, but wewant to focus on the customer.
And they're like, yeah, butwe've got this new AI tool, like
yeah, but the customer.
And they're like, yeah, but AI,and it was.
It was really weird to see thatback and forth.
But you have to have a path toget there.
You can't just say new AIcomponents are coming in,
(37:09):
they're going to cost you $500 amonth per store.
You know, pony it up.
So that was my takeaway onFSTech.
I think it was a great show, man, and the people were there
having good conversations.
I got to meet some incrediblepeople, you know.
I got to see the most basicuses of large language models
(37:33):
and chat.
Gpt, the CEO of Church'sChicken, sat down and said his
vision of AI.
The most basic vision was theytook the operator's manual, the
restaurant owner's manual, themanual for the devices and they
loaded them all into an LLM sothat way if someone had a
problem at the store, theydidn't have to call the manager,
they didn't have to call HR,they didn't have to call someone
, they could just look it up andeverything was digitized there
(37:56):
for them to happen.
And then, on the exact oppositeof what was happening with AI,
jamie Denny from Blaze Pizza,let it slip that they're making
announcements now in a guestexperience person in their
restaurants and this is kind ofinteresting.
I wonder if it's a trend that'sgoing to catch on, where, when
you come in, it's basically likea concierge or a hostess or a
(38:20):
host who, when you walk intoBlaze Pizza, they'll help you
craft your experience as you'rethere and their whole job is
just to work and interact withthe customer.
They're not, they're notselling anything, they're not
ringing you up, they're notdoing any of that.
They're there as a concierge tohelp you go through everything.
And that was along those linesof what they could do to be more
customer centric.
Heard from a bunch of differentpeople about, about what they
(38:43):
were doing and how they weredoing it.
Not AI, but recommendationengines at Applebee's and IHOP,
where 25% of their users orsales are from off-prem it's
people ordering it and going topick it up but how?
50% of the people who use theirapp or order online take
advantage of the mealrecommendation.
So it's like, hey, this goesgreat with a cookie or this goes
(39:05):
great with some pasta or asalad, and 50% of the people
they're ordering from there areactually using that, which is
kind of neat to see.
Those are the things thatreally stood out to me at FSTech
.
I think it was a great show.
I would encourage you if you'rein that space, adjacent to that
space or thinking about thatspace, that is definitely on my
go-to list.
(39:26):
The next one that I'll be at inthat space is MarTech.
I'll be at the MarTechExecutive Summit back in Orlando
in October.
But FSTech, it didn't let medown.
It's put on by the same peoplethat do the National Restaurant
Association show and that was akiller show as well.
But I'm curious to see how thisyou know this is specific in
that restaurant space.
So I'm curious to see how thisstacks up.
(39:47):
Nrf is coming up here prettysoon and NRF is going to have
some pretty, some pretty greatstuff.
But the panels were fantastic.
The people were great.
We got to learn a lot.
We got to see a lot.
We got to talk to a lot ofpeople.
Um learned about Qdoba and whatthey're doing, and this was
interesting.
They had their CEO and theirmarketing person talking about
how they work together and thefirst thing he wanted to do was
(40:09):
replace his 20-year-oldpoint-of-sale system.
So that was interesting.
But FSTech was great.
I would encourage you to go ifthat's what you want to see, but
I did want to do a breakdown ofit, just because that's what I
did this week and I thought itwas pretty neat.
So, yeah, I'm going out of towntomorrow and I'm going to be
gone for like four days.
I'm going to go disappear intoWest Texas for a hot minute and
(40:29):
I'll be back next week and I'lltry and check the news in
between now and then.
But up until that, uh, I'mtrying to think if I'm going to
be in any place to see anybodyanytime soon.
I don't see.
Oh, I don't see anybody.
I'm in the man cave with Furnay.
Oh, mark, oh, the man cave man.
I wish I was there.
I've been there.
I knocked my head around, doingeverything.
(40:49):
Hey, look, look, I'm going to.
I'm going to pose, I'm going tojust show you guys what I saw
online.
Hold on, give me a second.
I saw this thing pop up.
It was an Instagram ad and Ithought this was pretty cool.
It's called peppy pulse.
Peppy pulse have you guys heard, has anybody ever heard of this
Peppy Pulse?
You know me, I'm a sucker for agood travel router man.
(41:12):
Let's see if I can share thescreen.
Is that it?
Yeah, peppy Pulse Premium 5Gdevices for modern connectivity.
Look at this thing, you ready,let's see if it loads.
Okay.
So look at this little.
It's a little 5g all in onething with a built-in 5,000
milliamp battery, so I thoughtthat was pretty neat.
(41:35):
That's not the one that that Isaw, though.
They have this one onKickstarter.
Let's see if it'll load up here.
Yeah, look, here it is.
Look at this thing.
This thing's pretty crazy.
Look, isn't that cool looking.
It's got.
It's like a.
It almost looks like an iphone,but it has it's.
It looks like a touch screen.
It's just a big touch screenwith it's called the peppy pulse
aura, and it's on kickstarterright now, and I never heard of
(41:59):
it, but I asked them if they hada.
I was like, hey, do you guyshave an influencer program?
Listen, it never hurts to ask.
Don't make fun of me.
I always ask.
Sometimes people say yes,sometimes people say no.
This is calling itself theworld's smallest or smartest
travel 5g wi-fi hub.
It's a 5g mi-fi routerextraordinary performance,
seamless, seamless connectivity,powerful endurance and
(42:20):
compactness.
Um, of course, just likeeverything on the internet says,
it just works.
Dual sim and e-sim, 5g and 4gtouchscreen display, network
switching, multiple devices viawi-fi travel ready.
Oh, I wonder can you connect anethernet port with usb?
(42:42):
On this one I'm, because that'sthe thing.
That's the reason I love mylittle GLI stuff.
Oh look, it's got a littlekickstand on it.
Anyway, I thought that wasinteresting.
Oh, you know what?
In other news, in other devicenews, meta announced their new
glasses and they're getting some.
I mean, apparently I didn'twatch the whole thing, but
(43:05):
apparently there was a big oldglitch at the launch of it.
Something happened when theywere trying to take a call.
But what I will tell you is theneural band is part of this and,
oh my God, talk about one ofthe coolest things.
So it's a wristband that goesaround your wrist.
Obviously it's not a wristbandthat goes around your neck.
(43:26):
It's a wristband that goesaround your wrist and obviously
it's not a wristband that goesaround your neck.
It's a wristband that goesaround your wrist.
You put the glasses on.
They've got smart displays andthey've got cameras.
Now, dude, I love my ray-banmeta glasses.
I love them.
They're so great for takingpictures and video and doing all
the things.
When you add to that whatgoogle glass was supposed to be
for all the glass holes outthere, this apparently brings
all that to reality.
But the neural band is the keyand what it does is when you
(43:52):
wear it around your wrist.
I can't remember the the termof what it does.
Uh, elect, come on, drewelectromyography to pick up the
signals between your brain andyour hand when you're making a
gesture, and so this is theirnew interface.
And it goes around your wristand you do taps and you do like.
(44:12):
If you tap with your left hand,it approves something.
If you tap with your indexfinger or pointer finger, it
does something.
And you tap with your indexfinger, like your middle finger.
When you tap that, it goes backand so you can answer phone
calls.
You can tap to type, you canyou tap that it goes back and so
you can answer phone calls.
You can tap to type.
You can make gestures and, andyou know, write letters with
your fingers.
This is pretty crazy and they're$7.99 and they were just
(44:34):
introduced, and if any of myfriends from meta are listening
and you want to slide me a pair,I'm totes down to play with
these.
I think it would be phenomenal.
So I'm happy, I'm super happyfor these guys to get to get
this product out there and tofinally see some of this.
Uh, you know, no one reallyknew what the if it was gonna
was it gonna be a wristband, wasgonna be a watch, was gonna be
(44:54):
wearable, was gonna be somethingaround your neck.
No one really knew where thatwas gonna go.
The orion demo was the thingthat they those were the big old
goofy glasses, but today theyactually launched it.
Yeah, this had like a littlecontroller thing with it that's
the wireless compute puck, butit looks like it's all in one
Anyway.
So if anybody has one of those,or if anybody at Meta wants to
(45:16):
ship me some, I would love totry them out.
Anyway, frenet, mark Gibby,everyone listening online.
I appreciate you listening andtuning in.
I hope you like the breakdownof FSTech.
If you want to hear more aboutit, please reach out to me and
let me know what else.
I think.
That's it.
It is Thursday, it's raining,I'm going to check and make sure
everything's okay with my kids'school and then I'm going to go
(45:37):
eat a cheeseburger, becausetoday is National Cheeseburger
Day.
And if you haven't watched myvideo about getting a grilled
cheese cheeseburger If five guys, I would suggest that you watch
that and then go to yourclosest five guys If you're in
Vegas, if you're anywhere elsein the world, go hit a
Whataburger, go hit an In-N-Out,go grab a burger for National
Cheeseburger Day.
(45:58):
Today, thursday, september 18th, I believe, today is also
National Talk Like a Pirate Day,is it?
Or when is it?
Oh, it's tomorrow.
You heard it here first orsecond or third.
Tomorrow, army mateys, makesure you tell someone to swab
(46:18):
the deck.
September 19th 2025 isInternational Talk Like a Pirate
Day.
Don't forget that is the mostimportant thing that you can
take away from this episode isthat tomorrow is National Talk
Like a Pirate Day.
Don't forget that is the mostimportant thing that you can
take away from this episode isthat tomorrow is National Talk
Like a Pirate Day and today isNational Cheeseburger Day.
Go have a cheeseburger, enjoythe rest of your afternoon.
I will talk to you guys when Iget back from my little vacay.
What's up.
What's up everybody.
Drew Lentz, wireless Nerd.
Today is September 18th.
It's a Thursday, it's a thirstyThursday, it's a fabulous
Thursday, it's a fun-filledThursday afternoon.
I hope everybody's having agreat Thursday.
I hope everybody had a greatweek this week.
It's been fantastic.
I've been out of town a wholebunch this week working on some
(00:22):
projects and going out to attendsome trade shows, and I think
that that's where I want tofocus.
This week is in the foodservice space.
Before I get into that, acouple of things.
One Apple introduced the N1.
And the N1, once it wasintroduced, there were some
conversations that took place onLinkedIn back and forth, some
(00:42):
people worked at Apple, somepeople who worked at different
manufacturers talking about theN1 and its capabilities.
And is it four by four?
Is it two by two?
It looks like it's two by two.
I could be wrong.
I don't know if there's aspecific spec on it right now.
You know I posted, so I sawthis thing that was a webpage on
(01:05):
applecom and it showed what itwas, and then I go to click on
it and it's gone.
And I was like, well, dude, andso Klaus and I were going back
and forth, mr Klaus heading, wewere going back and forth trying
to find out where it was likewhat, the what, the final say on
it if it was two by two.
And so I'm going to'm gonna,I'm gonna scroll through this
(01:26):
real quick and see if I can findit.
But the n1 chip, essentiallywhat happened was apple decided
to make their own silicone whenit came to communication.
So all the wirelesscommunications on side, uh,
inside that iphone, the newiphone, are running across their
own chip, which is kind of coolfor them.
I mean, uh, I I think it's neat.
They got away from, you know,working with the traditional
(01:48):
vendors that are out there inspace and they brought
everything in on their own.
And that was pretty, prettyneat.
But the question was was itgoing to work with everything
that we needed to work with?
So, is it going to work in theindustry?
Is the N1 chip going to supportwhat we need?
And so slowly things arestarting to come out.
Is it going to work in theindustry?
Is the in one chip going tosupport what we need?
And so slowly things arestarting to come out.
Like it's not 320 megahertz atlaunch, right, it's 160
(02:09):
megahertz.
Um, it looks like it is a twoby two.
Device that's out.
There is it, you know.
Is it going to be upgradable?
Is what?
What is the status of that chipgoing to be?
And then the other magicquestion.
Tom's hardware asked thequestion.
Let's see if I can bring up thearticle.
They asked the question aboutthe N1.
(02:37):
Check this out, oh, tom, yeah.
So Tom's Guide right here.
Let's flip this screen overreal quick.
Let's open this thing up andsee what I can show you here.
And where's my little windowcapture?
It always takes me a minutewhen I first get started you
guys doing that.
Look at this, look at what thisthing's saying right here.
So in Tom's guide it's sayingget out of here with this.
(03:00):
Apple could make Wi-Fi just workwith a new airport router and
Apple Silicon could be themissing puzzle piece.
So this made its way around theslack, the slack circuits and
the discord circuits where itwas like, well, wait a minute.
If they're cranking out theirnew in one chip set and it's
their chip set could this be therebirth of airport?
And you know people are excitedabout that.
(03:21):
However, it doesn't look likethat's really the case.
I mean, they haven't made anyannouncements, they haven't
hinted at that.
There's nothing out there,there's no compelling story that
says that they're going to doit.
So are they capable of doing it?
Yeah, I mean, they'd done itbefore the airport extreme.
It was a great access point.
If you recall, when our buddy,keith Parsons, was doing the big
(03:46):
Wi-Fi bake-off a bunch of yearsago in a classroom with all the
laptops and tablets laid acrossthe table, he put that thing
out there and when he waswaiting for the test to come
through, he turned on hisairport and it did better than
the other access points in theroom, which was hilarious.
So that's kind of cool.
Oh, what's up.
Look, there's people listening.
Yeah, so that's kind of cool.
(04:11):
Oh, what's up.
Look, there's people listening.
Um, yeah, so so there's that.
Uh, that they, you know theydid it, but it looks like in
here you know that that endedbefore, and so it said well, you
know if, if apple's airportcame back, they could take a
similar approach, and here's allthe great things they could do.
And it was like well, you know,is there a market for that that
they want to get into?
We don't know.
And so it goes on to talk aboutthe N1 in this thread, with
Wi-Fi 7, with Bluetooth 6, withsupport for Thread, with all
(04:34):
these things that are in there.
And then it was kind of cool tosee this.
If you scroll down right there,it says as close as you can get
to an Apple and it's got theEero product.
Yeah, pretty sick, so shout outto the Euro team.
That's pretty dope to see thaton there.
But it begs the question Do youthink that that's something
that these guys want to get backinto?
I don't know, there hasn't beenevidence of it.
(04:55):
Hopefully Apple's Wi-Fi GibbyCaro says, hopefully Apple's
Wi-Fi has been updated, at leastfor Samsung devices.
Yeah, for Samsung devices.
Yeah, there's some stuff, man,I bet.
If I just look up Apple 17 Wi-Fiissues, I wonder if there's
anything going on here.
Ios 7, that's iOS 17.
That's a little bit older, butyou know we'll see where it goes
(05:18):
.
And so let's see what the N1,apple MIMO.
Let's Google this and see whathappens.
Oh, look, is AI going to tellus what's going on here?
Whoa, look at that.
Ai hooked us up Wi-Fi 7.
Yeah, there you go.
2x2, 5g and 4x4.
Wow, I love this.
You know, ai is something I dowant to talk about here in a
(05:40):
minute, but not in this context,kind of in this context, but
not really.
So there you go, that'sinteresting.
I thought that that wassomething that we definitely
needed to touch on real quickwas the N1 chip and what the
future that goes to Some otherthings that are happening in the
industry.
Cytos made some announcementsthey had a webinar that I didn't
get a chance to tune into, sohopefully maybe we can get Mika
or get someone on the horn hereto talk about some of the new
(06:03):
stuff that they have going on.
But basically they teased outWhere's my little screen share?
They teased out right here newwall drawing, tools for
intuitive controls, richervisuals, flexible floor plan
management, enhanced AP control,defined mount type, azimuth and
attributes, directly or via CSV, which is kind of helpful for a
lot of us.
Streamlined workflows uh,extrapolation there so you can
(06:26):
build your own settings andsneak peek of the new micro app.
So I didn't get to see it, so Idon't even know what the micro
app is.
I haven't even had a chance totune in.
So if you're listening fromcdos or cytos and you saw what
was going on there, please reachout and post it.
See if anybody posts anythingin the comments here.
No, nothing.
Excellent presentation.
Uh, super agile projectdevelopment, yeah, but man, I
didn't get to see what the dangold thing was, so that's kind of
(06:49):
a bummer.
But they've got some newannouncements that are coming
out there and I wanted tohighlight that because it's
really.
It's just so cool to see theinnovation in the tool space
happening and then happening andhappening again, you know, and
what's really cool is to seethat, instead of all just
innovating at the same time,doing the same things, ekahau is
innovating in one way withOokla right, and we're going to
(07:11):
talk about that here in a secondand CEDOS is innovating in
their own way, and then Haminais innovating just across the
board in all these differentways.
But they're all doing it alittle bit different, a little
bit more unique, and at the sametime you've got NetAlly in the
background bit different, alittle bit more unique, and at
the same time you got NetAlly,you know, in the background.
So hopefully there'll be someannouncement from NetAlly soon.
I know that they're alwaysworking on something, so we'll
see where they go, but the barjust keeps getting raised over
(07:32):
and over and over again.
So that was pretty neat to see.
I'm glad that they're doingthat, and the thing that I want
to talk about from Ookla waskind of interesting because, um,
or from you know, eckhau anducla, because they launched a
program which was something that.
That it's.
(07:53):
It's like I like I don't wantto say I like I don't even want
to say it because you know it'sdumb when you start talking
about stuff that you could have,could have, would have shoulda.
Um, a while back, a long timeago, uh, I had some great
conversations with some oldfriends and some old co-workers
about building a tool that justcreated a basic score of how
(08:14):
everything worked and Iregistered the domain name and
it's called NetScore and I madethe graphics and I started to
build the app and did all thethings and life got in the way
and the whole concept was canyou score a system, can you
score a network based ondifferent attributes, and then
update that score and share thatscore so that people can view
(08:36):
it, but validated by a thirdparty, and it was like, yeah,
man, maybe someday that'llhappen, it'll be pretty cool to
see that, and we never didanything with it and I don't
know that anybody did anythingwith it.
And now, finally, you see whatyou see.
He says Not, you see.
(08:57):
But you see what's going on andI'm trying to load up the page
as I'm talking here.
Check this out, man on.
And I'm trying to load up thepage as I'm talking here.
Check this out, ma'am.
So so matt and stew andeveryone's tweeting this stuff
speed test certified forwireless excellence.
Now, I haven't looked into thiswhole thing, but the concept is
(09:17):
I understand it and this iswhat says matt here's shown off
that it's a way to verifyconnectivity and quality at any
venue.
Later in the week, our globalUGLA marketing team got together
in person.
We ran into poor Wi-Fi atairports, conference rooms and
even restaurants.
This is exactly why speed testcertification matters.
So this is a way to take theonline scores from UGLA and give
(09:38):
them a plaque either a virtualplaque or a physical plaque to
show people that it's a verifiedconnection, that it works the
way it's supposed to, based onspeed test, you know, based on
speed testnet speed test thateverybody uses and that Ookla
uses.
So this is really, really neatto see because it's a way to
verify that speeds are gettingwhat they are.
Now I'm not going to go intodetail on what I would have done
(09:59):
with it, I'm just going to seeif they do what I thought that
they were going to do and whatmy old friend, david, thought
that they were going to do atthe time.
There was a really cool marketfor this, but I don't want to
give it away, like you know, notbecause I'm going to do
anything with it, just because Iwant to watch and see if they
do what I hope that they do.
It would be pretty neat.
So I'm excited, I'm stoked tosee this, just because it's
(10:23):
really cool to see when they dothis test.
I don't know what the processlooks like for this and I don't
know what someone has to do togo through the certification to
get the plaque, but once thisgets rolled out, it's going to
be pretty neat to see across theboard whether it's a digital
pendant that someone can put ontheir website for their hotel or
whatnot, or if it's an actualplaque that goes inside their
(10:46):
building, like the one that yousee on the screen.
So kudos to them for doing that.
And again, it's just anotherway that innovation happens, and
I think that the key there isit's not just about the
innovation happening byproviding a plaque, but what can
we do in our jobs every day sothat we can design networks that
(11:06):
meet those rigorousqualifications or those rigorous
standards.
And this reminds me about whatyou know what Wi-Fi was doing
before, where you had Wi-Ficertified homes and there
weren't, if I recall, thereweren't a lot of vendors that
participated in that and thereweren't a lot of home builders
that participated in it.
There were a couple of them Idon't remember the names, it was
(11:29):
Lenar and someone else.
There were two of the largerhome builders in the United
States.
But the goal was how do youtake a floor plan or a blueprint
design around it and get thatto be certified by the Wi-Fi
Alliance, certified as a Wi-Fiready home or Wi-Fi usable home?
So when you think about that,it's the idea that you and I you
who's listening or watching youcan have the ability to help
(11:52):
your customers build somethingthat can get quote unquote
stamped in a way that's going togive them the ability to
provide that Wi-Fi excellence asdeemed acceptable by Ookla.
The problem is is that there's alot of things that are out of
your control.
So I get where it's going, butI'm also a little like hesitant,
because there's a lot of stuffthat happens day to day in a
(12:14):
facility that changes thedynamics of the RF, you know so.
So kudos to them for doing it.
I think it's a really goodproject and I think in
controlled environments it canbe really neat, um, but I'm
curious to see how how itcontinuously evolves.
Obviously, if there was asensor there or something that
was deployed that was constantlychecking the wi-fi and
(12:34):
reporting that data back in realtime, and instead of a plaque
on the wall, maybe it's adigital display that shows what
it is versus some type of staticcomponent.
A couple thoughts there, anyway.
So, either way, that's prettyneat.
Yeah, so that was happening.
Now something else happened thisweek which was fascinating.
(12:56):
Keith, going back to Keith, mrParsons, as Mr Frenet calls him
Mr Parsons ran a survey on hisLinkedIn and he asked what tool
people use to communicate onsocial media, and he got a
fairly decent response, and so,like any nerd, what I did is I
(13:18):
didn't want to read everything,so I opened up Claude from
Anthropic and I had it analyzethe responses to Keith's
LinkedIn post so that I couldsee some numbers and metrics and
then dig into some actualanalysis based on the people
that responded to it.
So this is kind of interesting,so I thought I'd share those
(13:38):
responses with you.
So, keith, in your LinkedInpost you asked how people
communicate on social media.
You asked what tools people use, and so I had this thing
analyzed.
So your top platform rankings,as determined by the wireless
industry, linkedin represents82.4% of the responses that
(13:59):
responded to Keith's LinkedInpost based on what they use.
That responded to Keith'sLinkedIn post based on what they
used.
82.4% said LinkedIn is theirnumber one go-to for social
media, and a lot of it has to dowith work.
58% of the people thatresponded were wireless
professionals multiple CW&Es inthere, a strong presence of
802.11 networks professionalsthat were in there.
(14:20):
Second was YouTube and Slack.
They were tied at 52.9% and Xdropped down to 47%.
And it's interesting because alot of us used X for a really
long time.
We used, um, we used Twitterfor a really long time to
communicate everything that wasgoing on, and and it just got to
the point let me see if I canload this up got to the point
(14:42):
where there you go, where wewere.
Uh, oops, wrong one, thescreen's open, we.
It got to the point where wewere.
Oh, there, it is sorry aboutthat, there we go whatever.
It got to the point where, uh,where no one was using it, just,
and I don't know why.
I don't like it because, dude,honestly, because I open it up
and it's filled with a bunch ofstuff I don't want to read.
(15:03):
So, so, up at the top, insteadof going for you, I just change
it to following, and that's whatI read on X now, because I
don't really care about anythingelse when I'm looking at it.
I'm not trying to get news fromit, I'm trying to keep updated
with what my friends are doing.
So, x and Twitter 47%.
Industry concentration, 58% arewireless.
I asked if there was a responsein gender, like if males versus
(15:24):
females used one versus another.
There were five femaleresponses 29.4.
And this was kind ofinteresting.
They emphasized strategic,purpose-driven approach.
Minimizing distractions,maximizing effectiveness was the
whole idea, and so key genderdifferences Women were looking
for longer, more explanatoryresponses with strategic
reasoning, and men were likelonger, more explanatory,
responsible, strategic reasoning, and men were like more list,
(15:47):
focused.
Women looking for the context,dependent, audience focused,
strategic men, function,specific, efficiency, focused,
categorical.
So I thought that was kind offunny man.
Um, the other thing that was inthere was about blue sky and in
in some of the first ones, bluesky wasn't even mentioned.
Reddit was mentioned.
(16:07):
In there a little bit, here wego.
Here's the big, the big one.
So 11 mentions at first ofLinkedIn and X, youtube, slack,
reddit, discord, blue sky,mastodon, tick the Joel I'm
convinced that Joel Crane is theonly person that's actually
using Mastodon or blue sky and Ithink even freaking, you know,
hollingsworth is the only guythat's on blue sky.
Dude, like why not Dude anotherplatform?
(16:30):
I don't, I can't even man, youknow.
Uh, discord, I I guess I expecthim more discord, but all of us
are pretty slack heavy.
I mean kudos to the, to theWi-Fi Pro's Slack channel that's
on there.
Maybe that has a lot to do withit, but I don't know it's.
50% of respondents were intechnology and engineering, 35%
in business and strategy.
(16:51):
Platform categories, linkedindominates 78.6, and actually
rose after I re-ran it.
And then the key communicationtools Slack and Discord, but
nothing else was reallymentioned.
So anyway, I thought that wasfascinating.
That was a fun thing to runthrough.
Ai, I agree, mark and everyone.
I do linkedin, I pop on linkedinand I don't like to see content
(17:15):
on linkedin that's not relatedto business or work or jobs or
people talking about the thingsthat they're doing.
I don't like to see that stuffon there.
I don't like to see anythingother than that.
That's exactly what I use it.
If I want to hear politicalopinions and I want to hear
people going rants and whatever,then I'll get on Facebook, I'll
get all over Facebook, but keepthat stuff off of LinkedIn,
please, please, please, allright, what else I think that's
(17:41):
about it?
That's all of those things Iwant to talk about.
There's some conferences comingup Mobile World Congress, las
Vegas 2025 is coming up prettysoon that's October 14th and
15th.
And what other shows?
Ces?
Obviously, wlpc.
Oh, call for Papers is open forWLPC.
If you want to present at theWLPC, then I encourage you to
(18:06):
jump on the website and look upthe Call for Papers and put your
information in there, becauseit's coming up soon and this is
the perfect time to do it.
So, phoenix 2025, the call forpresentations is up.
The screen is at the WLPCcomand if you go there, you can
(18:27):
learn more about it.
Registration opens on the 15thand if you hit call for
presentations right here oh man,look at that, dude Friends you
can get in here and you can findsome information.
Where is it?
Oh, there it is.
Submit your proposal.
There you go.
So let's see what happens.
It opens up a little air tablething and oh, I'm on the wrong
(18:48):
screen.
Sorry about that.
If you're watching at home, ifyou're playing along at home, I
totally messed that one up andthen I minimized it.
No, that's not the right one.
You know, one of these daysI'll learn how to computer
properly.
Oh, it just all disappeared forme.
That's pretty neat.
Anyway, let me go back overhere.
So the call for papers is open.
If you want to get in there,just go to thewlpccom.
(19:10):
You can learn all about what togo in there.
You fill in your first name,last name, your company, link to
a bio page about you, put inyour presentation title and a
descriptive, a descriptive um250 character limit paragraph.
Now you get to choose whetheryou want to do a presentation, a
deep dive or a bootcamp.
I suggest that, whatever youwant to do, put it in there and
let's see what happens.
It's going to be a good year.
26 is going to be a good year.
(19:31):
The conference is the 17ththrough 19th.
The bootcamps are the 14ththrough 16th.
I just realized that isFebruary 14th through 19th, whoa
Well, it's going to be somelove at the boot camps,
valentine's Day is happening, sothat's what's going on there
Now.
(19:51):
What I want to talk about alittle bit more in depth is
FSTech, and FSTech is the foodservice technology.
Let me see if I can fix thisthing again here.
It's the Food ServiceTechnology Expo and it just took
place this past week in Orlandoat the Gaylord Palms in Orlando
(20:15):
in Florida, and it was ameeting of a bunch of different
people in food service and Iattended for the first time.
I'd never been to FSTech beforeand I got the chance to go and
I went and it was expensive.
It was $5,000 to register toget in there.
I think we got a special dealon it, but it was not cheap and
(20:36):
I was skeptical.
I'm not going to lie.
I was totally skeptical becauseI thought, well, it's a lot of
money and it's, you know, timeaway.
It's on a freaking.
I had to fly out on Saturday andspend a Sunday out there and,
dude, I hate traveling on theweekends.
I really hate traveling on theweekends.
I really try not to do it.
But I was like.
You know, I'm going to see whatit's like, and so I went, so I
(21:03):
jumped on the plane and I wentout there and I attended and,
wow, it was way better than Ithought it was going to be and I
didn't think it was going to bebad.
Let me be 100% clear I didn'tthink it was going to be bad.
It was just way better than Ithought it was going to be.
And it was a great crowd and itwas filled with wonderful
people and and the crews thatwere there were were phenomenal,
(21:26):
and so I I snapped a lot ofphotos.
I, you know, I put everythingout on on, uh, on Twitter I
still use Twitter as kind of asmy main go-to there Right, and
so it kicked off uh, grace Lear,this, this, this wonderful
person, did a, did a song at thebeginning, and it was kind of
interesting to kick it offbecause it was BMI, the, the,
(21:47):
the music group, that talkedabout how restaurants and retail
facilities are so important inthe lives of artists.
Because I don't know if you knowthis or not, but when you own a
, a place, a store that thepublic is attending, the public
can attend, and you're playingmusic, you have to become a
member of BMI.
If not, they can fine you likeall kinds of different ways, but
(22:08):
if you become a member of BMI,you can play like whatever you
want.
You get the license.
You can play any of the musicthat's in there.
Usually they stick a sticker onthe door that says that you're
good to go a sticker on the doorthat says that you're good to
go.
But I had never thought abouthow much money is made off of
that, off of those royalties,and how that actually makes its
way to the artist.
So Grace did a really good jobexplaining that, and then the
(22:29):
president of BMI came out andtalked a little bit about that
also.
So that was pretty neat to seeBefore that check this out, man.
So if you're looking on thevideo feed before that, when I
went to go check in, they hadthis whole crowd-connected thing
and I was like, oh cool, it'slike an RFID tracker, an NFC
tracker or something.
And I looked around and theyhad sensors like every 20 feet
(22:50):
across the whole facility at theGaylord Convention Center, and
the lanyard that they give youwas obnoxious dude.
That they give you wasobnoxious dude it was.
It had this huge plastic thingon it that I immediately took
apart because I wanted to seewhat they were doing.
It ends up it's just a chipsetand a battery.
I'm pretty sure it was NFC.
Uh, I don't.
(23:10):
I.
I really should have brought myflipper with me so I could have
cloned it or played with it orhad some fun, but I wasn't.
I wasn't there to do that.
I was there to meet with somepeople and see what I could
learn about the conference.
So a little PCB antenna, I toreit apart, I disassembled it and
I reassembled it and then Istuck it in my bag because I
wasn't going to wear it aroundmy neck and I was like I'm going
to cover up my QR code, whichis dumb.
(23:32):
You guys aren't going to jumpinto Orlando and go pretend you
were me, anyway.
So FSTech kicked off and I wantto go through it real quick.
So you had, at first you had apanel and it was the CEO of
Habit Burger, the head oftechnology for Jollibee, the
head of marketing for LettuceEats, and then it was the CEO of
(23:52):
Main Squeeze Juice Company andshe gave me a shot of juice
which was like ginger andcayenne and whatever.
Oh, holy moly that thing.
Just like wow, I mean, it wokeme up.
It was pretty crazy and thefirst panel really set the tone,
I feel like, for the rest ofthe show.
So this was my big takeaway.
My hot take at FSTech was thatthe elephant in the room was
(24:17):
about how to increase customerrelationships and hospitality.
In hospitality, for as muchtechnology that was there, for
as much AI that was there and asmuch innovation in point of
sale and marketing and all theother stuff, every person there
that was an operator and thatwas a brand was more interested
(24:40):
in how they could continue tomaintain the relationship with
their customer.
Because, in one of the words ofthe speakers they said, when
people come into a restaurant,they come in because they're
celebrating something they'recelebrating a birthday, they're
celebrating a promotion, orthey're mourning something.
They're coming in because it'safter a funeral and they don't
want to make the food, or it'safter some tragic event, or they
(25:03):
got fired or they got hired.
Either way, whether it's goodor whether it's bad, there's
this emotional state that peopleare in when they come into a
restaurant and they want a humaninteraction, and so they threw
up all these numbers andstatistics to support it.
But the idea is that istechnology driving us further
away from offering real personaltransactions, if you will,
(25:28):
personal relationships andputting the people back in
hospitality.
That was the question.
And so you had this conferencethat was filled, filled with
people that were talking aboutAI.
I swear it felt like everysingle panel session and every
session, every breakout, wasabout AI.
It really was, and this is myfirst year here and I was later
told that it's been like thatfor three years or something.
(25:50):
At FSTech, dude, everybody wastalking about AI and it was
overwhelming the amount of AInoise at this conference and it
really just reminded me of theold adage that it was that it
was, you know, the whole hammerlooking for a nail thing.
And so you had hammersalespeople everywhere trying to
(26:11):
sell you the best and thebiggest and the brightest and
all this stuff.
But there was no need, like somany people were just like, dude
, there's no big need for this,because what they're trying to
do is so far away from that.
What they're trying to do isget back to hospitality and get
back to the people connection ofit.
That it's like yeah, you haveall this technology, but that's
(26:32):
not really where we want to be.
And so then you ask well, what'sthe point of having technology
at a technology conference?
Why did these brands come to atechnology conference and a
couple of really big thingsstood out.
One of the things that stoodout is that it really seemed
like the people that were therewere yearning for technology
that just works, stuff that justdoes what it's supposed to do.
(26:53):
And I asked the question when Iwas talking to someone about
knowing who the manufacturer ofthe pipes and the convention
center are.
Nobody cares who themanufacturer of the door lock is
, whoever does a good job doingthe door lock, and I think that
in that space, so many operatorsand so many brands are looking
for technology that just worksto be the underlying system.
(27:15):
It's as critical as the gas inthe stove.
It's as critical as the waterin the pipes, it's as critical
as the plumbing system.
But it's not something thatthey're sitting there focusing
on.
They're not going.
Oh my God, hold on.
Let me stop and take the timeand look at my Wi-Fi access
point and look at my router andmake sure it does all the things
that we need to do.
That's not where their focus is, and because that's not where
(27:35):
their focus is, any time thatthat comes up on a budget item
or on a bottom line, it's like,ah, why am I paying so much for
Wi-Fi, for Wi-Fi?
Why am I paying so much forthis stuff?
That's just supposed to work?
Because I got to pay it and Igot to pay a license fee and I
got to pay an MSP and I have topay an integrator.
I have to pay this person.
I have to pay this person justto get the foundational stuff
(27:55):
working at my restaurant so thatI can focus on the other stuff,
like making sure I've got goodcommunication with the people
who walk in the door and I needit to work so that the tablet
doesn't go down.
But people who walk in the doorand I need it to work so that
the tablet doesn't go down.
But you have all these peoplethat are pitching AI and they're
like, oh, the AI can do thisand it can do that and it can do
this and it can do that.
But there was not a use casethat I heard at FSTech that
could be nailed down tosomething that everyone was like
(28:18):
yes, that's what AI is good for.
Now, a lot of people talkedabout voice and about how voice
was going to be this big thing.
And how you know, a couple ofyears ago it popped up is
supposed to be fantastic, butthen, as it's made its way into
the market space, it's like,well, it was 80% accurate, it
was 85% accurate.
Now it's 90% accurate.
But 90% accuracy means it's 10%inaccurate, and that 10%
(28:41):
inevitably is going to be you orit's going to be me at the
drive-thru, because it's onlygoing to fail when you want it
right.
And so is that technology at aspace where it's good enough to
be used in food service?
And if it is, then great.
But what's the point of usingthat technology in food service?
And so I broke it down in myhead in a couple different ways.
One you got to have thatfoundational network that does
(29:03):
what the network does, thatallows the Wi-Fi, allows the
communications, allows thetransactions to take place.
You have to have it.
And if you have to have it andthere's ways that you don't have
to spend 10 times the amount ofmoney on it, if there's a way
that you can do it better, more,cost, effectively, and work
with partners who know whatthey're doing and you're not
being charged absorbent fees forlicensing and all this other
(29:24):
stuff, then that's going to giveyou budget to do some other
really, really cool stuff whenit becomes available Some of
it's not available today, butwhen it becomes available.
So then we get in these thoughtsessions where it's like, okay,
what does good working AI looklike to you in food service?
If you've followed me at allover my career, I want you to go
(29:48):
back and think about what I didat the presentation for
Mobility Field Day 8 or WirelessField Day 8, when I talked
about Scrape and about how wewere leveraging music in my
wife's restaurant to increasethe amount of time that people
spent inside the restaurant.
We changed the playlistdynamically based on who was
there, by grabbing their dataand running it through an
(30:08):
algorithm and changing a Spotifyplaylist, and it was awesome
and we saw an increase of 40% ofpeople that stayed for more
than 45 minutes.
That was the whole goal of whatwe did.
We leveraged the Wi-Fiinfrastructure to make a change
to the environment that affectedthe people that were there in a
positive way, so that theystayed longer.
This was how many years ago 15years ago that we were doing
(30:29):
that with Airtight.
It was a great experiment, butnow, finally, people are like,
oh, you know what we should do.
We should figure out how to usetechnology to change the
environment for people withoutgetting in their face, so that
they stay longer.
And I'm like how tall toremember that term.
Hello and welcome to a longtime ago.
And it's it's really coolbecause it's finally right.
(30:52):
It's people are finally lookingat this, going, oh, how do we
do it?
And and I was listening to apanel and something that my wife
said a long time ago when wewere doing this is she said
there's a there's a thin linebetween useful and creepy, and
and so today my wife and I werehaving this conversation.
We're talking about everythingthat I learned at the conference
and I'm going to give youexamples of some of the stuff
that came up at the show and howwe use it in real world.
(31:14):
We went to go grab a coffeetoday at Dutch brothers and and
we're talking about how to usetechnology, and I said, you know
, in a perfect world, one of theexamples was when you pull up
to the Dutch brothers, imagineif the person who came to your
car said hey, drew, welcome back.
I see, it's almost yourbirthday.
(31:35):
We've got a discount for you.
Do you want the regular thingthat you get.
Do you want the large mocha?
And Jess, I see that you're inthe car.
Hey, last time you were hereyou got this.
Do you want to try that againor do you want something else?
And I asked my wife if thatwould have happened, if they
would have been able tocustomize my experience with
them just by pulling up in a car, even though we haven't been
there in like two months.
Would that have been useful orcreepy?
(31:56):
And she said you know, I wouldhave immediately thought, hey,
their app works.
You know, hey, there'ssomething that's working there.
And so it made me think youknow, is there an opt-in?
Imagine there was an opt-inthat said hey, next time you
come in, is it cool if we callyou by name, is it cool if we
remember your order so we cangive you a better customer
experience?
And there's a lot of peoplethat would say no, but for the
people that would say yes,that's pretty neat to me, and I
(32:19):
think that that's that linebetween useful and creepy.
You know, if you have theability to opt into it.
Now, if I walked into a storethat I had never been to and
they walked up and they're likedrew, hey, we know you like
adidas shoes.
We got some adidas on the shelfover here.
You're a size 13, you want togo try them on?
That would be weird if I'dnever been there, but if there,
if it was part of a customerinteraction, that's kind of cool
(32:40):
.
And so you think about, in foodservice, the things that you
could imagine that would behelpful to you or useful to you.
I eat a lot of Whataburger.
I love Whataburger.
I love Five Guys.
I love burgers.
What are you going to do, man?
And so imagine if, when youpulled in the drive-thru, if it
was using camera recognition ofmy license plate, my vehicle, my
face, whatever it is, combinedwith voice recognition or
(33:01):
combined with the fact that myapp happens to be there and the
GPS is reporting via the appthat I'm close to a store, and
so there's like a mechanism thatsays, hey, I am Drew, verified,
and they say Drew, welcome back.
Do you want, you know, thenumber four with a large Coke or
root beer or sweet tea orwhatever I'm drinking?
Or if it changed the menuboards to update to my
(33:23):
specification, it takes anythingwith nuts off the menu because
it knows my kids have a nutallergy or it.
Only you know.
It has a focus on the newfeature.
It's a Dr Pepper shake orwhatever.
Imagine a world where the AI isdoing that on the back end,
using that network transport tooffer a customer service
experience that's really, reallyelevated and really personal.
(33:44):
I can get behind something likethat.
But the problem that I washaving at this conference was
that people were talking alittle bit about some of these
future vision things, but thepeople that were trying to sell
the AI weren't the ones talkingabout the future vision.
It was the operators and it wasthe brands that were saying
(34:05):
these are things that we want todo in order to make it more
meaningful for our customers.
And everybody referencesChili's, because I don't know if
you know or not, but if you golook at what Chili's has done in
the last year, chili's is on ahuge comeback.
They are on a tear and they'refiguring out how to welcome
people back into their storesand it's really neat to see.
But you had this disconnectwhere the vendors weren't the
(34:27):
ones pitching this.
They were pitching some of it,but they weren't pitching the
solutions.
They were just trying to sellwhatever wares they had today.
And dude.
I even heard someone call apoint of sale vendor a glorified
calculator.
They're like look bro, you'rejust a glorified calculator in
my store.
You're just adding andsubtracting numbers.
I need something that providesme customer experience, and so I
(34:48):
didn't get my question in tothe CEO of PAR, the point of
sale system.
But my question for him was inthe future, when AI has the
capability to do all thesemagical things, I would imagine
that the first place you wouldgo to would be the point of sale
vendor, because they've gothardware there in the store or
they're doing something in thecloud.
But if that's the case, it isgoing to cost more money, and
(35:12):
that money has to come fromsomewhere.
It can either come from savingmoney in one place and
reallocating it, or it can comefrom the operator generating
more revenue in order to pay forthat AI or those enhancements.
And that takes me back to what Iwas thinking about from the
infrastructure side.
I think it's incumbent upon us,as network nerds and as people
(35:32):
who focus on wireless and focuson the infrastructure, to figure
out how we can enabletechnologies like this, like
these really cool ideas, in thefuture.
But we have to do it by makingour equipment better, more
user-friendly, supporting justthe need for the transport, the
same way that the pipes and theplumbing do.
We need to bring it back to apoint where and this was
(35:57):
controversial right the bestthing I think that we can do is
make it so that no restaurantknows who we are.
They shouldn't know who ourvendor is.
Now, the people who build thebuilding they know what pipes to
buy.
The people who are budgetingthey know what pipes to buy, but
the operator, the store managerand the brand manager it
(36:18):
shouldn't even be a thing forthem.
It should just be like hey, itworks, it's working great and
it's solving my problem and it'sdoing exactly what I need it to
do.
So that was my takeaway onFSTech.
It was a tug of war between whatthe brands and the operators
were looking for and what thevendors had and what they were
trying to get people to adopt,and it just felt like there was
(36:42):
a disconnect.
And it wasn't even a disconnect.
It was like hey, we want tofocus on the customer.
And they're like, hey, youshould really do some AI.
And they're like, yeah, but wewant to focus on the customer.
And they're like, yeah, butwe've got this new AI tool, like
yeah, but the customer.
And they're like, yeah, but AI,and it was.
It was really weird to see thatback and forth.
But you have to have a path toget there.
You can't just say new AIcomponents are coming in,
(37:09):
they're going to cost you $500 amonth per store.
You know, pony it up.
So that was my takeaway onFSTech.
I think it was a great show, man, and the people were there
having good conversations.
I got to meet some incrediblepeople, you know.
I got to see the most basicuses of large language models
(37:33):
and chat.
Gpt, the CEO of Church'sChicken, sat down and said his
vision of AI.
The most basic vision was theytook the operator's manual, the
restaurant owner's manual, themanual for the devices and they
loaded them all into an LLM sothat way if someone had a
problem at the store, theydidn't have to call the manager,
they didn't have to call HR,they didn't have to call someone
, they could just look it up andeverything was digitized there
(37:56):
for them to happen.
And then, on the exact oppositeof what was happening with AI,
jamie Denny from Blaze Pizza,let it slip that they're making
announcements now in a guestexperience person in their
restaurants and this is kind ofinteresting.
I wonder if it's a trend that'sgoing to catch on, where, when
you come in, it's basically likea concierge or a hostess or a
(38:20):
host who, when you walk intoBlaze Pizza, they'll help you
craft your experience as you'rethere and their whole job is
just to work and interact withthe customer.
They're not, they're notselling anything, they're not
ringing you up, they're notdoing any of that.
They're there as a concierge tohelp you go through everything.
And that was along those linesof what they could do to be more
customer centric.
Heard from a bunch of differentpeople about, about what they
(38:43):
were doing and how they weredoing it.
Not AI, but recommendationengines at Applebee's and IHOP,
where 25% of their users orsales are from off-prem it's
people ordering it and going topick it up but how?
50% of the people who use theirapp or order online take
advantage of the mealrecommendation.
So it's like, hey, this goesgreat with a cookie or this goes
(39:05):
great with some pasta or asalad, and 50% of the people
they're ordering from there areactually using that, which is
kind of neat to see.
Those are the things thatreally stood out to me at FSTech
.
I think it was a great show.
I would encourage you if you'rein that space, adjacent to that
space or thinking about thatspace, that is definitely on my
go-to list.
(39:26):
The next one that I'll be at inthat space is MarTech.
I'll be at the MarTechExecutive Summit back in Orlando
in October.
But FSTech, it didn't let medown.
It's put on by the same peoplethat do the National Restaurant
Association show and that was akiller show as well.
But I'm curious to see how thisyou know this is specific in
that restaurant space.
So I'm curious to see how thisstacks up.
(39:47):
Nrf is coming up here prettysoon and NRF is going to have
some pretty, some pretty greatstuff.
But the panels were fantastic.
The people were great.
We got to learn a lot.
We got to see a lot.
We got to talk to a lot ofpeople.
Um learned about Qdoba and whatthey're doing, and this was
interesting.
They had their CEO and theirmarketing person talking about
how they work together and thefirst thing he wanted to do was
(40:09):
replace his 20-year-oldpoint-of-sale system.
So that was interesting.
But FSTech was great.
I would encourage you to go ifthat's what you want to see, but
I did want to do a breakdown ofit, just because that's what I
did this week and I thought itwas pretty neat.
So, yeah, I'm going out of towntomorrow and I'm going to be
gone for like four days.
I'm going to go disappear intoWest Texas for a hot minute and
(40:29):
I'll be back next week and I'lltry and check the news in
between now and then.
But up until that, uh, I'mtrying to think if I'm going to
be in any place to see anybodyanytime soon.
I don't see.
Oh, I don't see anybody.
I'm in the man cave with Furnay.
Oh, mark, oh, the man cave man.
I wish I was there.
I've been there.
I knocked my head around, doingeverything.
(40:49):
Hey, look, look, I'm going to.
I'm going to pose, I'm going tojust show you guys what I saw
online.
Hold on, give me a second.
I saw this thing pop up.
It was an Instagram ad and Ithought this was pretty cool.
It's called peppy pulse.
Peppy pulse have you guys heard, has anybody ever heard of this
Peppy Pulse?
You know me, I'm a sucker for agood travel router man.
(41:12):
Let's see if I can share thescreen.
Is that it?
Yeah, peppy Pulse Premium 5Gdevices for modern connectivity.
Look at this thing, you ready,let's see if it loads.
Okay.
So look at this little.
It's a little 5g all in onething with a built-in 5,000
milliamp battery, so I thoughtthat was pretty neat.
(41:35):
That's not the one that that Isaw, though.
They have this one onKickstarter.
Let's see if it'll load up here.
Yeah, look, here it is.
Look at this thing.
This thing's pretty crazy.
Look, isn't that cool looking.
It's got.
It's like a.
It almost looks like an iphone,but it has it's.
It looks like a touch screen.
It's just a big touch screenwith it's called the peppy pulse
aura, and it's on kickstarterright now, and I never heard of
(41:59):
it, but I asked them if they hada.
I was like, hey, do you guyshave an influencer program?
Listen, it never hurts to ask.
Don't make fun of me.
I always ask.
Sometimes people say yes,sometimes people say no.
This is calling itself theworld's smallest or smartest
travel 5g wi-fi hub.
It's a 5g mi-fi routerextraordinary performance,
seamless, seamless connectivity,powerful endurance and
(42:20):
compactness.
Um, of course, just likeeverything on the internet says,
it just works.
Dual sim and e-sim, 5g and 4gtouchscreen display, network
switching, multiple devices viawi-fi travel ready.
Oh, I wonder can you connect anethernet port with usb?
(42:42):
On this one I'm, because that'sthe thing.
That's the reason I love mylittle GLI stuff.
Oh look, it's got a littlekickstand on it.
Anyway, I thought that wasinteresting.
Oh, you know what?
In other news, in other devicenews, meta announced their new
glasses and they're getting some.
I mean, apparently I didn'twatch the whole thing, but
(43:05):
apparently there was a big oldglitch at the launch of it.
Something happened when theywere trying to take a call.
But what I will tell you is theneural band is part of this and,
oh my God, talk about one ofthe coolest things.
So it's a wristband that goesaround your wrist.
Obviously it's not a wristbandthat goes around your neck.
(43:26):
It's a wristband that goesaround your wrist and obviously
it's not a wristband that goesaround your neck.
It's a wristband that goesaround your wrist.
You put the glasses on.
They've got smart displays andthey've got cameras.
Now, dude, I love my ray-banmeta glasses.
I love them.
They're so great for takingpictures and video and doing all
the things.
When you add to that whatgoogle glass was supposed to be
for all the glass holes outthere, this apparently brings
all that to reality.
But the neural band is the keyand what it does is when you
(43:52):
wear it around your wrist.
I can't remember the the termof what it does.
Uh, elect, come on, drewelectromyography to pick up the
signals between your brain andyour hand when you're making a
gesture, and so this is theirnew interface.
And it goes around your wristand you do taps and you do like.
(44:12):
If you tap with your left hand,it approves something.
If you tap with your indexfinger or pointer finger, it
does something.
And you tap with your indexfinger, like your middle finger.
When you tap that, it goes backand so you can answer phone
calls.
You can tap to type, you canyou tap that it goes back and so
you can answer phone calls.
You can tap to type.
You can make gestures and, andyou know, write letters with
your fingers.
This is pretty crazy and they're$7.99 and they were just
(44:34):
introduced, and if any of myfriends from meta are listening
and you want to slide me a pair,I'm totes down to play with
these.
I think it would be phenomenal.
So I'm happy, I'm super happyfor these guys to get to get
this product out there and tofinally see some of this.
Uh, you know, no one reallyknew what the if it was gonna
was it gonna be a wristband, wasgonna be a watch, was gonna be
(44:54):
wearable, was gonna be somethingaround your neck.
No one really knew where thatwas gonna go.
The orion demo was the thingthat they those were the big old
goofy glasses, but today theyactually launched it.
Yeah, this had like a littlecontroller thing with it that's
the wireless compute puck, butit looks like it's all in one
Anyway.
So if anybody has one of those,or if anybody at Meta wants to
(45:16):
ship me some, I would love totry them out.
Anyway, frenet, mark Gibby,everyone listening online.
I appreciate you listening andtuning in.
I hope you like the breakdownof FSTech.
If you want to hear more aboutit, please reach out to me and
let me know what else.
I think.
That's it.
It is Thursday, it's raining,I'm going to check and make sure
everything's okay with my kids'school and then I'm going to go
(45:37):
eat a cheeseburger, becausetoday is National Cheeseburger
Day.
And if you haven't watched myvideo about getting a grilled
cheese cheeseburger If five guys, I would suggest that you watch
that and then go to yourclosest five guys If you're in
Vegas, if you're anywhere elsein the world, go hit a
Whataburger, go hit an In-N-Out,go grab a burger for National
Cheeseburger Day.
(45:58):
Today, thursday, september 18th, I believe, today is also
National Talk Like a Pirate Day,is it?
Or when is it?
Oh, it's tomorrow.
You heard it here first orsecond or third.
Tomorrow, army mateys, makesure you tell someone to swab
(46:18):
the deck.
September 19th 2025 isInternational Talk Like a Pirate
Day.
Don't forget that is the mostimportant thing that you can
take away from this episode isthat tomorrow is National Talk
Like a Pirate Day.
Don't forget that is the mostimportant thing that you can
take away from this episode isthat tomorrow is National Talk
Like a Pirate Day and today isNational Cheeseburger Day.
Go have a cheeseburger, enjoythe rest of your afternoon.
I will talk to you guys when Iget back from my little vacay.
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