A Study on the Use of Wireless Sensor Networks in a Retail Store / Dawud Gordon, Michael Beigl, Masayuki Iwai

This paper presents the outcome of a formative study - experiences and requirements - on using wireless sensor network technology in retail stores. The study was carried out in several steps. - First, a simple approach to implementing a wireless sensor network system was used by a developer for building a retail store application. Here we collected experiences about the problems in the application implementation process. - Second, the system was deployed in a real retail store. Here we collected feedback from customers and from retail store staff about the system, its usefulness and integration into the overall daily business workflow. - Third, we analyzed requirements for the next generation of improved wireless sensor network systems by performing a requirements study. We will report our initial results of the requirements analysis study. The findings indicate a lack of abstraction from the technical details of the system needed to enable a high-level developer to create an application for a retail scenario, and we will list some of the important issues that need to be addressed.