How IoT Keeps the Cannabis Industry Connected


The Cannabis industry consists of all real legal producers/consumers, rights, products and services, and standards for all. The cannabis business, which BDSA says is worth $21 billion, is getting increasingly connected. Internet of Things (IoT) technology is already linking growers to their plants, retailers to government regulators, and patients to their doctors. Changes in attitude & laws are causing a business boom, as well as new technology supporting cannabis companies to handle this growth. Hence IoT sector is really important when it comes to security issues. IoT connectivity gives these businesses the information and control they need to get around problems and keep growing throughout a product's life cycle. Let us look at different potential Applications of Internet of Things Technology in the Cannabis Industry −

Retailing

The cannabis sector offers multiple options. For example, cannabis delivery companies could use real-time tracking technology, marketing and shopping could be more personalized, and supply chain management could be improved. Cannabis stores are starting to use the personalization that IoT-driven intel gives them to offer their customers.

IoT is becoming more important for compliance and learning about customers at the retailer stage. IoT technologies are a big part of the retail market as a whole. This segment of the market might be incredibly profitable to $94 billion by 2025.

Retailers may find that IoT-connected products are a great way to keep the system of compliance & transparency going. RFIDs, in particular, according to TSC Printronix Auto ID, offer security and actual news for increased goods like cannabis plants, their byproducts, and their final products. It also saves the retailer and manufacturer money on labor costs related to compliance because "it can read large numbers of tags (objects) in mins without the physical connection required by traditional barcodes."

Sensors such as near-field communication (NFC) tags and radio frequency identification (RFID) seem to be the service that is becoming more popular between many cannabis manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.

Agriculture

Everything is planned and controlled through the IoT, from the light schedule & spectrum to the formulas for nutrients, the temperature, the weather, and more. Modern grow rooms are run by a network of sensors that send data to a dashboard that can be controlled from afar. Even though the industry isn't prepared for an entirely hands-off grow room yet, it's getting there thanks to IoT.

Also, Agrify is one of the most important companies working in horizontally controlled environment agriculture (CEA), which AI drives. This information is put together by cultivation managers or master growers, who are often helped by artificial intelligence (AI) to make minute changes to the climate parameters.

Agrify Insights helps businesses keep track of every part of their operation from afar, on top of the full control that each Vertical Farm Unit (VFU) gives them.

Each VFU can send up to 1.5 million datasets each year. The Agrify Observations platform crunches these numbers to help people make decisions and plan production better on demand.

The Master plant growing integrates a wide range of CEA technologies into a single dashboard to improve yields by a lot and ensure that everything is always the same. American farmers are just another one-stop shop for growing plants. The Master plant growing remedy would be cloud-based, AI-managed software that is set up to meet the needs of each crop and can even be adjusted for each cultivar.

Consumer and Buyer

IoT-powered devices gather a lot of information about consumers, such as their demographics, product preferences, usage patterns, and applications. These softwarebased vaporizers, like PAX or DAVINCI, record session data in a mobile app that the user can access. One could say that information collected at the retail level could one day tell the whole industry what to do.

The attached app gives you useful information about how to control the temperature, choose products, and make each session consistent and predictable. But the portable vaporizer market is where the most important changes are happening, both in the medical and recreational markets.

On the clinical side, RYAH Group is making a set of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as a Smart Inhaler, Smart Patch, but also Smart Pen, that can be used to control the dosage of plant-based medicines (future launch). RYAH is also involved in research. An international clinic is using the RYAH Smart Inhaler to do one of the world's biggest and most in-depth studies on the safety and effectiveness of cannabis for people with chronic pain.

Researchers, clinics, and doctors can get a better idea of how various strains & temperatures affect different groups of people and their efficacy goals with these connected consumer-level devices. So every device uses AI to collect and connect HIPAAcompliant data, which gives patients and doctors valuable insights, such as the ability to make very personalized treatment plans.

This important information could flow back through the distribution chain, helping doctors decide what products to recommend and, in the end, what strains to grow.

Basically, when the cannabis market grows, this will help it to keep up with the growth of customers, even though regulations are getting stricter. As a business grows, operations will be more cost-effective, supply chains will run more smoothly, and marketing materials will be more effective.

Conclusion

Farmers are already using it to make their crops more uniform. By 2026, the IoT market should be worth $344,7 billion. Also, dispensaries use sensors that are specific to each product to make compliance reporting easier. Cannabis, which is a cash crop with a lot of value, is definitely one of the things that are driving this growth.

Updated on: 09-Jan-2023

144 Views

Kickstart Your Career

Get certified by completing the course

Get Started
Advertisements