Thursday Jan 15, 2026

Five Eyes, Zero Cloud: Vision AI - From Crop Fields to Factory Floors - We talk IoT #77

Artificial intelligence is moving to the edge - and it's changing how factories operate, farms grow crops, and robots navigate the world.

In this episode, Monica Houston from Tria Technologies walks us through Tria's Vision AI Kit 6490, an industrial-grade edge computing board that processes five camera feeds simultaneously, runs inference locally, and handles demanding tasks like image segmentation - all without needing cloud connectivity or even a cooling fan.

Monica discusses real-world deployments in agriculture (spot-treating crops to reduce pesticide use), factory robotics (autonomous mobile robots and robotic arms), and the practical challenges of moving AI from comfortable data centres to harsh industrial environments. We explore why latency matters, what happens when you can't rely on internet connections, and why power efficiency is the unsung hero of edge AI.

If you've wondered whether edge AI is ready for industrial prime time, this conversation delivers the answer - with hardware in hand.

#EdgeAI #IndustrialIoT #Robotics #Agriculture #Qualcomm #WeTalkIoT

Summary of this week's episode:

01:57 Monica's Background at Hackster.io and Tria Technologies

02:38 What the Vision AI Kit Actually Does

04:01 Why Edge Processing Matters for Robotics

07:46 Agricultural Use Cases: Spot-Treating Crops

09:55 Autonomous Vehicles and VSLAM Technology

12:32 Factory Floor vs Self-Driving Cars

14:09 Real-World Deployment: Robot Arms in Action

16:44 ROS 2 and Robotics Applications

17:36 Edge Impulse: Making Model Deployment Easier