- Isaac Hayes developed RFID infrastructure for Australian commercial laundries, including the Mobile Linen Hub for Airbnb operators
- His company Luminar has launched Sally, an AI agent that interfaces with RFID systems in retail environments to help staff query inventory data
- Research shows retail inventory accuracy improves from 65% to 95% with RFID technology implementation
- Sally can connect to various RFID readers and process hundreds of tags per second, completing a 5,000 SKU stocktake in under two minutes
- The system aims to make RFID technology accessible to staff without specialist training, addressing a key barrier to adoption
Isaac Hayes spent close to a decade building the RFID infrastructure that sits inside Australian commercial laundry operations. His most recognised work is the Mobile Linen Hub: a patent-pending, unmanned RFID-enabled store that lets Airbnb operators drop off soiled linen and collect clean linen at any hour, without placing orders or waiting for a delivery driver: a just-walk-out experience for commercial laundry, covered by RFID Journal in 2022. Now he has turned that background toward a problem that costs Australian retailers billions in lost stock and missed sales every year.
Luminar, Hayes's IoT consultancy, has launched Sally: an AI agent that connects to existing RFID infrastructure in retail and warehouse environments and gives floor staff a plain-language interface to query live inventory data.
The problem Sally addresses is well documented. According to research from Auburn University's RFID Lab, average inventory accuracy in apparel retail without RFID sits around 65 percent. Retailers with active RFID programs consistently measure above 95 percent. The gap between those two figures accounts for a material share of out-of-stocks, overstocking, and shrink write-offs industry-wide. The technology to close that gap has been commercially available for years. What has been missing is an accessible interface that doesn't require specialist training to operate.
What Sally does
Sally connects to RFID readers across a retail site: fixed portals, handheld scanners, dock equipment, and layers a conversational AI interface on top. A staff member can ask where a specific product is located and receive an answer in seconds. A supervisor can initiate a full stocktake and receive a reconciled count against the system of record, with discrepancies flagged automatically.
To put that in concrete terms: a single UHF RFID reader operating at standard read rates can process several hundred tags per second across a read zone of up to ten metres. A 5,000 SKU floor area covered by a modest fixed reader network can be fully enumerated in under two minutes. The work Sally replaces typically takes a team of two to three staff the better part of a shift.
"The technology to fix inventory accuracy has existed for years. What hasn't existed is a way for everyday staff to tap into it without training," Hayes said. "Sally changes that."
Getting started with Sally
Luminar is currently onboarding its first retail partners. Scoping engagements are available now to assess site requirements and integration options.
About us:
Luminar is a technical consultancy based on the Mornington Peninsula specialising in IoT, RFID, and AI automation.
Founded by Isaac Hayes, designer of Linen Hub, Luminar works with businesses across Australia to turn physical operations into connected, data-driven environments.
Contact details:
Isaac Hayes: [email protected]
