Simbe Robotics adds RFID and machine learning capabilities to Tally robot

Simbe Robotics has integrated Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Machine Learning technology to enable its autonomous inventory robot, Tally, to capture in-store data on all RFID-tagged merchandise, from apparel to electronics, sporting goods to home decor.

In addition to its pre-existing computer vision abilities, Tally now captures over 700 RFID product tags per second with higher than 99% accuracy.

This frees shop workers from using handheld scanning devices and provides retailers with real-time insight into product availability and placement.

Simbe’s combination of RFID and computer vision within Tally is the next step in the company’s vision to solve for the $1.1 trillion in annual retail losses retailers face due to out of stocks, over stock of merchandise, and product location errors.

Correcting for these losses also ultimately enhances the in-store shopper experience by ensuring the products customers want are always available and in the right place.

“RFID sensing is a natural next step as we think about game-changing technology that will increase inventory intelligence and help retailers create a better customer experience,” said Brad Bogolea, CEO and Co-founder of Simbe Robotics.

“With this launch, Simbe has become the first company in the world to combine RFID and computer vision in the same machine in scale production deployments.”

Since their inception, RFID-enabled Tally robots have scanned over 150,000 products of varying kinds, navigated safely in different retail environments and provided valuable inventory data to retailers to help optimise their product flow.

With Tally RFID, retailers benefit from: precise storewide inventory audits and regular cycle counts; and location and identification of misplaced products at sub-metre accuracy.

When combined with Tally’s Computer Vision capabilities, retailers also benefit from: visual audits of merchandise; out of stock items or low inventory alerts; and price tag validation.

“Brick and mortar retail is changing rapidly. Innovative technologies, like RFID and computer vision, are starting to become more mainstream as retailers think about how they can optimise in-store operations,” said Durgesh Tiwari, Simbe’s Vice President of Research and Development, Hardware.

Over the past nine months, Simbe has successfully completed domestic and international pilots to test Tally’s RFID integration with leading global retailers, and has moved to the deployment phase. RFID-enabled Tally robots are currently in scale deployments with several international retailers.