SES-imagotag Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL) Integration with MRs

Overview

Electronic shelf labels (ESL) are digital displays of various sizes and shapes used by retailers to display product pricing (among other uses). Unlike traditional paper price tags, the product pricing on electronic shelf labels can be automatically and remotely updated whenever a price is changed from a central control server. Below is an example of the electronic shelf label from a Meraki partner, SES-imagotag.

Electronic shelf labels have the following advantages over traditional paper price tags:

• Instant pricing integrity (accurate prices on all products, including promotions)

• Improved operating efficiency (eliminate paper label waste and free employees for higher-value activities)

• The enhanced customer experience (save time to find products and help both staff and shoppers make informed decisions)

Traditionally, retail customers had to deploy two parallel infrastructures: ESL “gateways: to serve ESL tags and regular Wi-Fi access points to serve wireless clients.

Sometimes an on-prem price update server needs to be set up as well. In addition, installing ESL gateways has associated costs that involve cable runs, additional PoE switch ports, IT security provisioning and monitoring, and labor.

Meraki partnered with SES-imagotag to deliver a simple integrated solution to our customers in such scenarios. Supported MR access points can act as ESL “gateways” for ESL labels and serve regular wireless clients.

SES/Meraki ESL Architecture

Traditional ESL deployment looks like this:

Customers must run ESL and wireless infrastructures in parallel and maintain hardware and software for both, increasing operational overhead.

Meraki provides a unified ESL + Wireless infrastructure with no additional hardware (e.g., USB dongles or PCI-e add-on cards):

How ESL SES-imagotag Integration Works

Terminology

• V:Cloud / V:Cloud instance 

  • SES-imagotag dashboard used to manage ESLs, view the status of MRs used as ESL gateways, and push price updates. 

• Meraki dashboard

  • Refers to the Meraki management web UI interface accessible via Meraki Cloud

When configured for the ESL MR access points will establish a TLS tunnel to V:Cloud to provide connectivity between ESL tags and SES-imagotag V:Cloud.

Supported Models and Specifications

Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL) integration with SES-imagotag is supported on the following AP models:

Prerequisites

• Access to SES V:Cloud. Please work with the SES-imagotag Sales team to get access. Direct connection type is not supported for new ESL deployments. Please refer to Meraki Dashboard Configuration and V:Cloud Connection Types for more details about token-based vs. direct connection types.

• Access to Electronic Shelf Labels from SES-imagotag. Please work with the SES-imagotag Sales team to get the tags.

• Enabling ESL on a Meraki network precludes other MR IoT functionality, most notably BLE. That is, when using ESL, MR access points will not transmit a BLE beacon or scan for nearby BLE devices.

ESL Firmware Upgrades

ESL firmware upgrades are automatic and do not require any intervention from Meraki dashboard admins. Once a new firmware version from SES-imagotag becomes available, Meraki MRs will automatically download this latest firmware on the IoT radio. Therefore, there is no need to upgrade MR access points' firmware.

Requirements

• MRs listed in the “Supported Models and Specifications” section

• The Network firmware version should be set to MR 28.1 or higher

• MRs should be allowed to communicate with V:Cloud using the following destinations and ports:

Predictive Site Survey (Optional)

Ekahau Pro software can be used to show ESL coverage using the BLE option below. Note that it only shows how many MRs hear BLE beacons from each other.

Manual ESL channel planning using custom tags is possible as well:

• Coverage planning - possible

• ESL channel planning - not possible (automatic)

Some rudimentary channel planning can be done with the custom tag functionality. For example, you could set "esl-channel : 1" tag for the ESLradio and you could then display the ESLcoverage for all ESLradios that have "esl-channel : 1" tag.

Meraki Dashboard Configuration and V:Cloud Connection Types

SES V:Cloud might use one of two SES backends: 1) direct legacy connection and 2) new token-based connection (also known as JWT).

If you would like to enable the ESL in your Meraki network(s), please follow these steps to determine which backend your V:Cloud store is using:

1. Log into V:Manager

2. Navigate to your Retail Chain

3. Navigate to your Retail Store

4. Click on the Infrastructure tab and scroll all the way down

5. Check the URL listed under “Network Information.”

6. XXXXXXX.cloudapp.azure.com means that your V:Cloud store is using the direct connection

7. ap-auth.vusion.io means that  your V:Cloud store is using the token-based connection

8. If your store uses the direct connection, please contact SES Support to schedule your V:Cloud store migration to the token-based connection.

9. Enable the ESL functionality in the Dashboard.

To enable ESL integration on supported MR models navigate to Wireless > Configure > IoT radio settings, select the “Electronic shelf labels” tab, and toggle "SES-imagotag integration" from “Disable” to “Enable”.

Select desired APs from the dropdown and assign an ESL channel for that AP (more on the ESL channels below). The “AP ID” field will be automatically generated. Repeat this step to enable ESL integration on additional MRs by using the "Add an AP" button.

Use “Download CSV of ESL-enabled APs” to download a CSV list of all ESL-enabled APs along with ESL channels and AP IDs. MRs can be added via API call (please refer to the SES API documentation on the https://api-portal-us.vusion.io/ portal) or manually as shown below. Leave all settings at defaults.