BZR Readability and Speed

[MikeParticipant]

Is there anyway to increase readability of the Flojack BZR? Or anyway to increase the speed? Does Flomio currently have an enterprise solution for access control? If so, what would be some pricing options? Please advise.

Thank you!

Kindest Regards,

Mike

[RichardKeymaster]

Hey Mike, unfortunately the speed at which our audio jack readers can operate is limited due to the noisy interface. Best rate we can achieve reliably is scanning for tags twice a second. This results in a worst case user experience of 1.5s latency for reading 10 byte UUIDs from NFC Forum Type 4 tags. This distinctly contrasts the performance from our Bluetooth readers which can scan for tag 10 times a second resulting in a worst case user experience of 200-300ms for a 10 byte UUID.

We have implemented several solutions for customers in the domain of access control. For instance, Royal Caribbean uses our technology on their cruise ships to allow guests to securely login to self-service kiosks for reviewing their account, schedule of events, and make purchases. We are working to standardize our software stack to offer an enterprise solution that can fit use cases like this. Until that is released though we can provide customized solutions to meet your needs in accelerated way. Just let us know your requirements and we can prepare an estimate.

best,
Richard

[MikeParticipant]

In addition, one of the issue we saw at our event with access control is that the BZR will beep but on the pad that it was connected to, the information was not sent. We would have to rescan the tag a few times. Out of say a 10 people line, this would happen about 2-3x. That is quite high and slows the access. Have you guys noticed this problem? Is there a fix to this?

In conjunction, sometimes when it scans the BZR light turns green and stays green and will no longer let you scan. We would have to unplug it and plug it back in, in order to have it work correctly. Again, we are concerned about the reliability issue.

Lastly after finishing our 2500 event, over half of the units we bought we not working. At first we thought it was the battery and charged. Still not working but the crazy thing is after a few days of non functioning, then it suddenly starts to work. We were a little confused on this.

If you could shed any light on these issues, that would be great! We would love to continue to work with Flomio but just have some concerns. Thank you!

[RichardKeymaster]

Hi Mike, thanks for the feedback. I’m glad that you were able to get through the event despite the reliability issues. Getting 30% mis-scans definitely sounds like an anomaly. We are able to get back-to-back scans consistently from our internal testing. What host devices were you using?? Please provide exact model numbers and OS versions. Also, did you make sure that the volume on each host device was raised to the max?? Low volume can cause communication errors across the audio jack because the signal to noise ratio is lowered.

With regards to the BZR “getting stuck” at reading a tag, this can happen for a number of reasons. It can be that commands from a previous read have yet to lear the audio jack channel. It also could be because the tags themselves are defective, causing improper protocol abidance. To properly root cause this issue we will need a reproducible test set of tags and reader exhibiting the problem. What tags were you using?? Please provide the chip part number, inlay designer, and manufacturer.

With regards to half of your readers not working for a few days, that is very peculiar. Again, if you can provide us with a reproducible test then we can work to root cause the issue and resolve. We haven’t seen any issues of this type and can confirm that every reader we ship is sanity tested to work during fulfillment. This is our last quality check to make sure our customers are guaranteed the best experience.

Again we appreciate your feedback as it’s the life blood that allows us to improve. We will do what we can to rectify issues you’ve uncovered if we can reproduce them in our lab.

best,
Richard

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