RFID dongle for iPhone?

[SamuelParticipant]

Hi guys, I saw your successful FloJack Kickstarter campaign, well done, but wanted to know about RFID tags and whether you plan on bringing out a dongle for that?

I need a system where I can tag all of the food in my freezer and just _know_ what’s in there and that technology would be RDIF, not NFC, even the standard RF is 3ft/1m, it would be a good move.

Everything that plugs into an iPhone is really pricy right now, have you anything on the horizon that can deal with this, I saw “UHF” mentioned on your site, but nothing relating to a product, am I missing something please?

Thanks!

Samuel, UK

[RichardKeymaster]

Hi Samuel, the freezer inventory concept is doable with UHF RFID. We are distributors of several UHF RFID manufacturers, most notably Impinj, and are still working on adding those products to our site. Prices for these type of readers is much higher than the NFC and BLE products we currently sell so that’s something to keep in mind. Furthermore, because of the fact that most freezers are metal boxes, the integration of a UHF RFID reader that works in that enclosure will require some tuning for an effective solution. We can help with that, if you’re interested.

[SamuelParticipant]

From my position I am not expecting the signal strength to penetrate the confines of a freezer, I would be quite happy to open the door and hold my phone there to populate it with the contents of the freezer.

I felt that the standard RF 3ft/1m range would be sufficient, especially factoring in cost as you say. The cost of the chips seems to be the least to worry about, it’s the cost of the reader as I am looking for an iPhone solution.

Aside from the hardware I am also concerned with the software side, right now I don’t have any big plans for the data from such a system, only that the items populate a list, do you know of any software on the iPhone that will read from all tags at once?

I don’t feel that UHF is something that I need, what solutions can you offer for iPhone please?

[RichardKeymaster]

Hi Samuel, the UHF RFID system is definitely what you will need. The signal strength is not for penetrating the freezer but to feasibly detect the articles irrespective of their orientation. NFC (ISO15693) wouldn’t give you more than 18cm of range and that would be a difficult implementation to get working effectively.

We currently have a UHF RFID reader that supports Bluetooth2.1 so you could build something that would push to mobile the articles in the freezer at the moment you opened the door. The only problem is that the latest iPhones don’t support Bluetooth2.1 so you would have to use an Android or WindowPhone that does. That said, the products we sell are all supported by our Flomio SDK, a drag/drop framework that lets you build an app in minutes.

If you’re hell bent on this working with iPhone, then your only option is to leverage the cloud. In other words, you’d use an Impinj Speedway reader posting freezer contents to the cloud when the door is opened and then a web service pushing a notification to your iPhone of all the items that were found. It’s a bit kludgy but given the UHF RFID reader options, that’s all there is available.

I encourage you to come out to TrackHack to learn more about how to build this project. It’s a proximity ID hackathon that we’re organizing in London on November 20th, 2015 and again in Austin on March 11, 2016. All the major NFC, BLE, and UHF RFID vendors will be there so you’ll get first hand information of how to get your project done.

[SamuelParticipant]

That’s sounds like a good venue, I’m not a hacker but others are and seems like a good place to meet people about this, thanks!

I’ll look into that, thanks for info as well…

[CarrieParticipant]

Hi Samuel. Richard let me know about your question. At U Grok It, we have a UHF RFID reader for iOS and Android phones. Plugs into the audio port and is intended for quick and simple use with an MSRP of $500. You can find out more about it at our website at http://www.ugrokit.com

[SamuelParticipant]

Hi, I saw that. It seems like what I may be after, a little pricy though..

[Author]

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