I recently gave a presentation at the RAIN Alliance and AIM EngageAgain event about co-existence of multiple RAIN RFID systems in hospitals. I felt that the topic is important since the use of RAIN RFID is booming in the healthcare industry – including hospitals. Hospitals are unique and challenging environments as there may be several RAIN RFID systems operating in parallel. Each system has its own tags and readers, but they are not isolated from each other.
The coexistence of these systems should be taken into account from the beginning to ensure reliable system operations. The good news is that RAIN RFID technology includes several tools and methods to help with the challenge.
The COVID-19 pandemic has motivated many companies, including us, to develop and improve different business areas. We started a project studying ARC certified labels, which first required us to get our hands on as many certified labels as possible. Most companies were easy to cooperate with, but in many cases, the sourcing process was extended by additional communications. As a recommendation to tag suppliers, we want to point out that sample orders can be the start of a new, long-lasting customer relationship, which is a good reason to process sample orders with the same importance as regular orders.
中文版 Chinese version Dear Santa, It’s great to start a letter by recognizing that 2019 has again been a truly astonishing year. Not only the tide of RAIN business has been positive, but also the talent pool is headed in the right direction. Take an example, Mr. Sipi Savolainen, a veteran of UPM, Smartrac, and Walki, made a 1-year detour to now find himself back in RAIN business at StoraEnso. We’ve also been fortunate to hire new talents to further expand our own team in Finland. 2019 Cleared Many Issues off the Slate In my letter to you a year ago I called f...
Read more →
The Finns drink more coffee than anyone else in the world. If you read more, you’ll see what it has to do with NFC.
In the past year, I have given half a dozen presentations aimed to label printers and converters considering entry to smart label manufacturing. Just recently I introduced RAIN RFID to a group of printing professionals from Thailand and elsewhere in East Asia and South-East Asia in ASPT 2019 popup event in Bangkok. Many printing companies are thinking about how to replace declining ink-on-paper business, and smart labels are a good option popup.
中文版 Chinese version I recently visited an NFC forum meeting where I listened to industry presentations and discussed with many NFC industry experts. User experience, user expectation, and physical level interoperability of various NFC devices came up frequently. This prompted me to finish this article, a draft version was written already while ago. I tested a few smartphones for NFC tapping user-friendliness and dug a bit deeper on the factors affecting the user experience. Three NFC Application Types When I think of NFC, I think of three very different application types and different experiences with them. Smart card: Think of a hotel ...
Read more →
中文版 Chinese version RED Puts Accountability to RAIN RFID Component Vendors RED is the Radio Equipment Directive 2014/53/EU and it applies to all radio equipment that’s used in Europe. This directive was passed already in 2014 but at first there was a bit of uncertainty of how it exactly works concerning RAIN RFID. Then the ETSI EN 302 208 standard was updated to v.3.1.1. in 2016, which already addresses both the lower and upper ETSI bands – well done Brussels! That standard document put clarity into how RED is enforced concerning RAIN, and that RAIN component vendors are accountable. RED Looks After the Interests of RAIN Vendo...
Read more →
RAIN RFID is being adopted increasingly in several industries such as automotive manufacturing, healthcare, and pharma. Because of the growing number of implementations, there is an increasing need for a solution that helps to scale up the implementations. One of the bottlenecks seems to be specifying RAIN tag performance in a way that enables the use of tags from several manufacturers in a system. Need for performance specification or for a method to classify tags comes up more and more frequently in industry meetings. The good news is that pioneering industries have solved these questions earlier, and there are working solutions ready for adoption.
I think this was my 11th time at the RFID Journal Live! show. For me the show is mostly about meeting a lot of customers and partners during a highly effective couple of days. The number of exhibitors seems to be going down, as is the number of people visiting the exhibition. At the same time, we are seeing less and less significant, new technical advancements at the show. Nevertheless, I think there is a valuable insight to be found: RFID is business as usual!
