The Connectivity Conversations That Came Out of Munich — and What They Confirmed About The Future Of Industrial Networking
Every industry event reveals something. At Automatica 2023 in Munich, the message from the floor was consistent regardless of who was talking: industries need affordable, reliable connectivity — and what exists today is not delivering it.
Meshmerize attended as part of the 6G Life booth within the AI Society showcase, from June 27th to 30th. Rather than presenting a roadmap or a pitch, we brought a live demo. Therefore, the conversations it sparked confirmed exactly why we built what we built.
What We Showed — and Why It Resonated
The demo placed visitors inside a public safety scenario: a remote fire, no cellular coverage, firefighters who need to communicate reliably in real time. The mesh network ran without a single cellular signal supporting it. Every device connected directly to its neighbors, data routed around obstacles automatically, and communication held.
For many visitors, that scenario made something abstract suddenly concrete. A network that works without infrastructure — no towers, no cables, no cellular dependency — is not just useful for firefighters. It is the same capability that AGVs need in a logistics facility, that drone operations need in the field, and that autonomous machinery needs underground or in rural areas where coverage simply does not exist.
Furthermore, the demo ran on commercial hardware from Meshmerize partners Doodle Labs and Acksys — devices that visitors could immediately recognize as deployable in their own operations rather than prototype hardware built for a trade show.
What the Industry Told Us ?
The conversations at Automatica covered a wide range: the future of 6G, implementing mesh networking into autonomous robot use cases, and even more speculative territory like underwater networks and connectivity on the Moon.
However, one theme cut through everything: cost. The rising expense of 5G infrastructure and the growing burden of cabling requirements came up repeatedly across very different industries. Consequently, when Meshmerize’s software-only, hardware-independent approach came up, it consistently landed as a direct answer to a problem people were already carrying into the conversation.
The Pattern Was Clear.
Industries are not waiting for a perfect technology. They are looking for something reliable enough to deploy today, affordable enough to justify, and flexible enough to grow with their operations. That combination of reliability, affordability, and hardware independence was the thread running through almost every meaningful conversation at the show.
The Bottom Line
Automatica 2023 confirmed what we already suspected: the connectivity gap in industrial automation is real, widely felt, and actively being searched for. We are grateful to the 6G Life project for the opportunity to be part of those conversations.
If you would like to continue the conversation about what mesh networking looks like in your operation, reach out at hello@meshmerize.net.
Meshmerize is based in Dresden, Germany.
