The Cannabis Industry is a huge business, with an estimated global value of 20.5 billion USD. With cannabis growing and expanding into other industries many are turning to technology to help drive growth, increase productivity, safety, quality of harvest and so much more. With new smart growing and harvesting technologies many business owners are looking to wireless solutions to help them manage their business. Harry Brelsford of the CannaTech Group sits down with Alex Wilson of Collabsion to discuss dealing with wireless in unique and challenging environments.
Video Transcription
Harry Brelsford
Welcome back to the Canna tech Podcast. I’m with Alex Wilson. How you doing? Great. All right, it’s funny how off camera we’re both complaining about the heat in our respective locations. Where are you located today?
Alex Wilson
Pennsylvania, south central area.
Harry Brelsford
All right. Well, let’s talk about wireless solutions in the cannabis industry go for it just what’s your story.
Alex Wilson
So we were approached some time ago by a facility out in California for a design for a wireless network inside of the grow facility. And it was the first time that we’ve ever dealt with something of this nature. We’re used to dealing with wireless in unique environments, whether it’s an airplane hangar inside the airplane, oil fields inside navy vessels, very unique, challenging environments that are not conducive to wireless plant life is not conducive to wireless either. And as they describe the facility to us, it became increasingly understanding that this is a big problem for them. And so they bring in the plants, there’s nothing there the plant grows, and suddenly you’ve got a room full of plant material. When they were designing their wireless, they were coming in with a wireless router, or access point of some sort, putting it in the room testing at night, great, it works. Then the plants grew. And it didn’t work. And essential. Yeah, it’s a critical part of their environment. This was the part that we didn’t even understand. I’m thinking, Okay, what do you need Wi Fi for to check your, you know, check the latest sports scores, or, you know, whatever. And they’re like, no, no, you know, the plants they’ve report and I’m like, Okay, talk to me. And so they have sensors in the, let’s see, yep, that transmit to the light, which is Bluetooth, which is no big deal. But then the light transmits by a Wi Fi. And that’s where the problem was. So you’ve got a metal rack with a light inside of a jungle, and you expect it to be able to transmit, left, right up or down somewhere, to an access point in that room, in addition to the sheer number of lights in a room, could be hundreds. And each one of those is an individual wireless client. So you’re doing a high density design, inside of a jungle. The challenge for us was that we had no way to test the model. Because we were not able to go to the facility. We’re in Pennsylvania, they’re in California, they weren’t even built yet. So there was nothing to go test, packed up my wireless gear, walked out back to the cornfield, and set it up in the cornfield and use the cornfield as my grow facility. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me to have stumbled on some out there. You know, living in the country where we do it does happen. But we put the test gear in the middle of the cornfield, did our readings, designed our model, presented it back to them. They implemented it, and it has been perfect. So, you know, little Yankee ingenuity and sorted all out. But anyhow, it solved a problem for the industry. And so we’ve had others who have come to us since then, to do the same thing. Yeah,
Harry Brelsford
yeah, you know, what I’m gonna do is I’m going to make a note. I’ll do it, we get off camera, but I’m going to make you one of my columns. I write the, I believe I told you. In fact, yes. You know, because we had dialogue about the show recently, but I write for marijuana venture magazine out of Seattle, I do the monthly can attack. Corner. And that is an interesting topic. And when you write a column, here’s here’s some of the dynamics. I’m just over two years in, so 24 columns, and I’ve kind of covered the top 10. Right, I had the top 10. Right. Okay, so I kind of got that one down. So now I have to go source unique and interesting stories. And so I’ll talk with you offline, but that’s a great story. And the readership for this magazine is both the the grower and the dispensary. Awesome. So So yeah, you’re just right on target them.
Alex Wilson
And honestly, you know, working we do work in so many different environments that it crosses all the different boundaries, and even for facilities that are doing outside grow work. It works in those environments. And then you know, there’s also the other parts of their environment where they want to get into security cameras, and you know, being able to expand to other buildings, potentially on site. These are all things that we can work together to create a workable solution because A lot of these places, they’re very remote. They don’t have infrastructure. And it’s a challenge. And then they can’t find anybody that wants to come out there. And of course, there’s also the controversy of the industry, which we look at it from a different approach. It’s it’s legal, then therefore, we’ll work with it. Illegal. No, we’re not going to work with it. I mean, it’s that simple. But in states where it is, why not? It’s a business.
Harry Brelsford
I’ll tell you what, I’m going to end on this. And then I’m going to do this I promise and put you on my editorial calendar. But the figures you have in the background, I worked my way through college on the trans Alaska pipeline. And grew up in Alaska and, man, I remember towers just like that. This is in the for me the the ADSL. I’ll age myself, but you sure bring it back memories. I sure. Remember those kind of towers, man. I’m about to actually be
Alex Wilson
on those two towers here shortly. On a project, they’re actually in the desert, supporting a very large counterculture event.
Harry Brelsford
Yeah, I know that one.
Alex Wilson
But they’re kind of like they’re kind of linked to the industry a little bit in its own way. But yes, there are more than ever.
Harry Brelsford
All right, Alex, thanks for your time. Yeah, you’re in touch
Alex Wilson
shortly. Alright, sounds great. All right.
