A Conversation with LocatorX Founder Billy Meadow

LocatorX is the culmination of decades’ worth of innovation and collaboration. In 2012, the journey began in earnest. It was then that founder Billy Meadow came across the technology at the heart of the company’s vision.

“I was looking to find some really great patents related to location technology,” said Billy. After selling his previous company, Billy was eager to blaze more trails in this booming technology space. Then, he learned about a recent quantum breakthrough in Oxford, England, with potential that was through the roof. Both literally and figuratively.

The patent in question was for a solid-state miniature atomic clock, a bite-sized rendering of the technology in many of our timepieces. Billy saw the opportunity to use this as a form of tracking (i.e. geospatial referencing), which would allow users to locate objects containing the clock through radio tower signals, rather than satellites.

“GPS indoors, in other words,” said Billy.

“For building out navigation systems, GPS doesn’t really work that well,” said Billy, referring to the technology’s limitations once inside buildings or within crowded city centers. “With the atomic clock, I saw an incredible business opportunity. It was an amazing, fundamental physics innovation that I wanted to turn into a product.”

Once Billy procured the patent, LocatorX was born. Since then, the Jacksonville-born entrepreneur has assembled a world-class team with diverse expertise, that has been hard at work building partner relationships and developing out the technology.

Billy’s core vision with the technology is mass-produced microchips containing scaled-down, fully operational atomic clocks. Attached to package labels or embedded on machinery, these chips would allow businesses to keep tabs on their assets with more accuracy and less interruption than ever before.

In addition to improved communication, Billy and the Board of Directors at LocatorX believe that this product could be a significant defense toward counterfeiting, by giving consumer brands a complete view of their products wherever they are in the world. This could also be a boon for marketing and customer relations.

Billy is confident that there is no limit for the product’s impact or the number of industries it could benefit.

“Just looking at these initiatives, there’s nobody right now that has a baseline solution for the same broad range of products.”

The current challenge en route to this vision is refining the technology so it can function at a low frequency which would, in turn, enable the smallest possible chips, produced for a penny a piece. Billy has established a test facility at the University of Washington where recruits are working diligently to perfect these chips.

Meanwhile, Billy has been operating LocatorX between Jacksonville and Atlanta. The company’s mission has been broken out into three phases, with the first phase -- a unique 2D barcode (QR code) -- well underway. The second phase, a bluetooth-encrypted chip, is going to be unveiled in the coming weeks.

The bread and butter of LocatorX, the Global Resource Locator, is projected for release in early 2020. As LocatorX collects steam with current products and generates steam for the future, Billy will be overseeing the research and development to ensure the best possible outcomes.

“We’re currently on #2 out of 4 or 5 revisions,” said Billy. “Revisions take 2-6 months a piece. With each revision to the chip, we’re working to make it smaller, more reliable, and with a better response time.”

The next several months will be equal parts exciting and hectic, as the company markets and recruits new customers for the 2D barcode and bluetooth chip solutions while pouring time and energy into next quarter’s full release. Billy is a firm believer in the value of these earlier releases and does not want to undersell their own importance.

“When someone scans something with our 2D barcode, you can start a complete audit trail of an individualized product,” said Billy.

“The same technology that could help you see if a customer redeemed a coupon can also help you track if a particular aircraft part was recently calibrated,” said Billy.

As Billy and the growing team at LocatorX work to develop and distribute these technologies, we are thrilled to share our plans and discuss the many valuable use cases for our current and future products.

If you would like to learn more about LocatorX’s current product line or receive updates on the Global Resource Locator and other developments, please contact LocatorX with a specific inquiry or subscribe to our mailing list.