PrAtlas - Afero Introduces ABLE™ Technology, Low-Cost Secure BLE-to-Internet Connectivity for Point-of-Sale Devices

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Patented Technology Enables Unattended Retail Devices to Securely Accept Payment Without Dedicated Internet Connectivity

LOS ALTOS, Calif. - May 21, 2019 - PrAtlas -- Afero, the next-generation IoT platform company, today announced the general availability of ABLE technology. This secure BLE-to-Internet connectivity enables Unattended Retail Providers to deliver a high-quality customer experience without the ongoing expense and maintenance of connecting their machines to Wi-Fi or LTE. Devices such as parking meters, vending machines, and other intelligent retail offerings leverage users' smartphones for turnkey connectivity with hardware-backed security.

With this technology, Afero reduces both costs and time-to-revenue for device owners who want the benefits of IoT but don't need their devices to always be connected. For this type of owner, the important time for device connection is when customers are using it.

"Internet connectivity promises to address the Unattended Retail challenges of device health, inventory management, and cashless payments," said Joe Britt, co-founder and CEO of Afero. "Unfortunately, the cost of hardware and connectivity has left that promise unfulfilled for many of these device owners. ABLE technology delivers on that promise by leveraging the Internet connection present in the customer's smartphone, simply by scanning a QR code. No pairing is required, and the transaction is processed immediately."

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In addition to payment data, the secure channel created with ABLE technology can be authorized to upload device telemetry, allowing the owner of the Unattended Retail device to get reports on the current status of each device, inventory levels, supply requirements, purchase trends, and other usage data.

Part of the Afero IoT Platform™ software, ABLE technology is designed to integrate securely with cloud-based payment processing solutions and supports the company's vision of IoT-enabled banking. In a recent related announcement, Afero introduced the "Bank of Things", a collaboration with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG) towards low-cost secure and reliable micropayment solutions for organizations, people, and things.

The Afero IoT Platform software has established a strong reputation for security, speed, and robustness. In addition, Afero has built a strong set of partnerships across the IoT technology spectrum, including notable projects developed with Kenmore, D-Link, and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. A recent independent study of the IoT patent landscape, conducted by Parola Analytics, placed Afero in the Top 5 IoT organizations globally.

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About Afero

The Afero next-generation IoT platform accelerates time to market, provides hardened security from sensor to cloud and from factory to customers, simplifies onboarding to help maximize customer connections, and uses data ontology to streamline machine learning. The Afero Platform is supported by elastic, multi-cloud services that deliver reliability, responsiveness, and a new software engineering model that unifies embedded, mobile, and cloud development.

Afero has assembled world-class mobile, hardware, security, and cloud veterans from Google, Apple, Nest, Danger, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter, and Netflix. To learn more about Afero, please visit www.afero.io.