If you listen to the optimists, the Internet of Things has virtually endless applications and places to go — including, apparently, your underwear.
Bloomberg’s Spencer Soper opened the door to a discussion of connected undies at the 2018 GeekWire Summit, asking a panel of IoT experts why exactly everything, including our drawers need to be tied to the internet.
Chris Diorio, CEO of Seattle connected tag-maker Impinj, said customers benefit from items in stores being tied to the internet. That way they know stores have their favorite items and retailers can get more insight on their inventory.
“When you go to the store you want to find the ones you want to buy — the right size and the right type,” Diorio said, referring back to the underwear question. “And if you’re like me, you know what you want to buy, you go in the store and you want it to be there. If it’s not there because of supply chain inefficiencies, you’re probably not going to buy anything.”
Nadia Shouraboura, whose company Hointer both operates a robot-powered retail store in Seattle and helps other retailers blend physical and digital experiences, had a bit of a different take. She said “the one thing that is important when you think of underpants is sex.”
Shouraboura is a big fan of smart lighting, specifically the ability to set it to a variety of “moods” that can uplift people, even after a rough day.
“The experience is you come in, and you are tired, and you don’t want to think about sex, and suddenly the whole room turns to the mood in soft blue and it genuinely works,” she said. “So if you measure IoT devices like lights and their correlation with quantity and quality of sex, there is a very strong correlation. So that’s your example for impact to your underpants.”
Scroll up to watch video of the entire Retail Store of the Future session from the 2018 GeekWire Summit.
