Category: RFID Industry

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The Benefits from RFID Technology Growth in this Decade

Mar 25, 2021

About the author

17Sami Rautanen

I’ve been working at Voyantic since January 2019 when I started as a Master’s thesis worker. Nowadays I work as an Senior HW Designer, mainly doing RF and electronics design for our products. I also study business administration to expand my expertise in the field of RFID.

Content

I work as an engineer at Voyantic and my main fields of expertise are electronics and radio science. Last autumn I started studying business administration to get a wider perspective in general. I have been trying to tie my work and studies together as much as possible, and when I attended a course called “Future experts 2030”, I got the idea to look into the future and see what it might bring for the RFID industry. More specifically: I tried to pick some trends which would have the most impact on the growth of the RFID industry.

Of course, there are a lot of possibilities, but I chose to take a closer look at five megatrends:

  • The development of science and technology
  • Overconsumption of resources
  • The amount of waste increases
  • Population growth and the aging of the population
  • The development of healthcare

Those megatrends were put on a future radar and some important elements were added for each sector.

The further from the center the elements are, the weaker their effect is in the present time. The colors represent the trend of the elements:

  • Green: Strengthening
  • Blue: Weakening
  • Red: Wild card

Let’s look into these trends and see what they have to do with RFID.

The development of science and technology

RFID technology is developing rapidly all the time, no doubt about that. My colleague Teemu wrote a blog post about the recent RAIN RFID research topics a while ago and listed some interesting topics there. However, if we look at the big picture it is not surprising that other technologies are also developing, and some of those are competing with RFID.

Since RFID enables items (or “things”) to be identified by systems run by computers, it is naturally one of the technologies used by IoT. For example, retail stores can use RFID for automated and real-time inventory. But when we think about identifying an item, is it enough to just know what it is? Wouldn’t it also be nice to know where it came from?

Hospitals can trace people and equipment with RFID tags, and I believe that this kind of traceability would make RFID much more valuable in some cases. That would require that different systems would be able to communicate with each other and pass tag information from one operating environment to another. For example, responsibility is nowadays an important aspect and companies could benefit from more transparent value chains.

Looking from a different perspective, the data consumption in the world keeps increasing exponentially and the data provided by RFID is adding to that. This requires continuously more from the data transfer networks and memory storage. This also brings data management challenges for the RFID systems.

Population growth, aging, and the development of healthcare

In western countries, the population is aging and the lifetime expectancy keeps increasing. The importance of healthcare will also grow while the workforce shortage problem gets worse. Since the amount of work increases, system and service automation should be made effective. This development is fortunately already quite far, as can be seen from another one of Teemu’s blog posts.

More and more medicines are used globally, and online shopping for medicine is also growing. This could attract more counterfeit medicine to the market, and that is something RFID could be used to prevent. Medicine traceability would make it harder for counterfeit medicine to reach the market, which increases the security of the medicine market.

Overconsumption of resources and the amount of waste increases

The overconsumption of resources is a well-known problem around the globe and so is the amount of waste the human population creates. The more we spend, the worse it gets. In the future, soil degradation might prove to be a serious problem for agriculture, and a shortage of raw materials for the electronics or construction industry could be a crippling problem.

For example, in retail, physical waste is created when inventory is not up to date or there are problems in the logistic chain. This causes:

  • Items to go out of date (or fashion)
  • Too many items are ordered
  • Items are lost

RFID is a well-known answer for an automated inventory and the retail industry has adopted it quite nicely.

What is needed from the RFID industry?

To be able to offer reliable solutions for the problems, the RFID industry needs to overcome some obstacles. One well-known bottleneck is the tag manufacturing capacity; the world has not enough capacity to manufacture tags if every retailer suddenly demanded every item to be tagged. We have to pump up the tag manufacturing numbers to be able to answer the growing demand.

Putting up the infra to enable the benefits of RFID is not cheap and requires investment, but I’d like to raise an equally important aspect to overcome. It’s not easy. The end users might not be experts in RF and they do not want to buy the RFID infrastructure. What they want to buy is the automated inventory, which just happens to be enabled by RFID technology. And they need help with that. RFID is not magic and has its limitations that need to be considered. That is why I believe the help provided as a service creates quite much value for the customers and should not be overlooked.

I also believe that it is a problem that different RFID environments do not communicate with each other. It means that the traceability of a tag is cut when it moves from one environment to another. To overcome this issue, the companies could work together and create a standardized system for tracing tag data.

All in all, the RFID industry is in a good position, and seems like the demand for RFID solutions remains high in the future. Hopefully, the COVID-19 pandemic will not cause too much setback for the development of RFID technology due to companies investing less in new systems.

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Highlights from the Future of RAIN RFID Tag Design Panel Discussion

Mar 09, 2021

About the author

15Teemu Ainasoja

I am Sales Director at Voyantic. I have over 15 years of experience from the RFID industry in Europe and the USA. I have two master's degrees: in industrial engineering and in marketing, and two patents in auto-ID technology. I am actively participating in RAIN RFID alliance activities.

Content

On Feb 17th 2021, we hosted an online panel discussion on the future direction of RAIN RFID tag design and tagging implementations. The panelists for the discussion were Matti Tavilampi from Avery Dennison, Steve Berry from Impinj, and Jesse Tuominen from Voyantic.

In case you missed the discussion, view the recording HERE

The discussion topics ranged from industry trends and standards to the development of readers, systems, ICs, and manufacturing technologies as well as embedded tags and smart packaging.

If spending an hour on the webinar recording does not currently fit your schedule, we made a quick recap on the topics and main points that came up during the webinar:

Megatrends that drive the RAIN industry

Early on to the panel discussion, we asked the numerous attendees to weigh in with their preferred two megatrends that strongly affect the RAIN industry.

RAIN RFID and circular economy

At first, RAIN RFID tag volumes started to grow in retail applications 10 to 15 years ago. Now the same tags are increasingly being used in manufacturing and the supply chain before the retail stores. The expectation is that the same tags will also be increasingly used in applications beyond the point of sale.

Tags are being applied more and more in item manufacturing. Source tagging poses new requirements for the RAIN RFID tagging. Tagging should support both the FCC and ETSI regions, and perform well in dense populations. Endurance and ruggedness requirements increase, because, for example, tags on garments must survive the entire life cycle of the item. Data privacy must also be considered differently when there are multiple users for the tags.

Dual-frequency tags are one approach. In some applications, a tag can combine supply chain tracking (RAIN) and consumer interaction (NFC).

Standards

The core of the Gen2 air interface has been stable for a relatively long time. The adoption of RAIN RFID technology has benefitted from the stable standard environment.

In the IC market, there seems to be a split between:

  • bare functionalities,
  • and more complex features in the protocol, such as authentication.

When it comes to protecting tag data from rogue readers, there are some users already for encryption and authentication, and interest in these possibilities seems to be increasing.

A viable policy is to pay only for the capabilities and features that are essentially required by the use case. Designers should know the air protocol standard at some level, and then industry-specific standards relevant to their target segment (aerospace, tire RFID).

Frequency allocation is something that designers should be aware of – especially the status of the upper ETSI band. Ultimately the upper ETSI makes tagging easier and brings new optimization possibilities. Optimization for upper ETSI comes naturally because other geographical areas are in the same frequency area.

Readers and systems

During the discussion, it was noted that the human operator is often the weak link in handheld scanning. Transition to overhead readers is ongoing, although an even faster transition was expected. In addition to overheads, also EAS gate and other fixed reader types’ use is increasing. The main hurdle to applying a new type of readers is twofold: the slowness in changing processes and business practices, and secondly, the longer read distance increasing tagging performance requirements.

Applications will also focus more on movements and transitions, not only on counting. These new types of applications are based on advanced algorithms tightly connected to the readers. Impinj for example has focused on improving sensitivity in the latest reader designs. It is a constant race, and more often reader sensitivity is the bottleneck.

ICs

IC sensitivities have improved roughly 15 dB in past 15 years. Operating ranges have increased six-fold from the first designs. ICs are also shrinking in footprint; Monza 1 was about 10 times the size of the latest Monza version. At the same time performance has increased. With smaller sizes also the IC cost has decreased.

The technology has matured. Modern ICs are stable. Memory corruption, clock shifts, etc issues are not seen anymore. On the other hand, there are plenty of specialty ICs with kilobytes of memory, data busses, logging, etc.

Sensor ICs were also discussed. Passive technology of RAIN RFID is easy in many sensor applications. The challenge is operation when there is no active reading around, for example, in data logging applications. RAIN RFID does not fit everywhere, but more sensors will be seen, for example, in cold chain applications.

Manufacturing

Up until today, it has been evident that high manufacturing volumes require big machines. This is true especially for labels, both for manufacturing inlays and in converting the inlays to labels.

Distributed manufacturing will be seen more in personalizing the tags. Embedded tags will change manufacturing, and this change has started and will continue. Instead of one label process, the process is divided and integrated into different item-specific manufacturing processes.

Embedded tags

Embedded tags are already in use in a variety of applications. Apparel care labels are already made in volumes. Also, tire tag volumes are increasing.

In many industrial areas and healthcare, further standardization is probably needed before embedded tag volumes grow. For example, the tire industry already has an ISO standard in place for tagging, enabling the industry to implement RAIN in a way that is both scalable and interoperable.

Embedding tags is happening right now, for example, with consumer packaged goods. Food tags are being integrated more and more into the packages, instead of a label on top of the package.

New antenna types and materials

Aluminum will not go away in the near term. There are plenty of established machines and production processes. Aluminum also has its benefits. Recycling the tags in paper packages is a frequent question. The current recycling processes handle this automatically. Separating metal from paper and plastic is already done efficiently in recycling.

Manufacturing will develop and change, processes are becoming more environmentally friendly, using fewer chemicals and creating less waste. New materials will first come to use, for example, in food packaging, where metals need to be avoided.

The above points are a brief summary of the discussion. The full recording is available here ›

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Wearable Sensors, Brain Stimulation and Invisible Tags: Review of RAIN RFID Research from 2018 to 2020

Feb 23, 2021

About the author

15Teemu Ainasoja

I am Sales Director at Voyantic. I have over 15 years of experience from the RFID industry in Europe and the USA. I have two master's degrees: in industrial engineering and in marketing, and two patents in auto-ID technology. I am actively participating in RAIN RFID alliance activities.

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中文版 Chinese version

Three years ago I wrote a blog article about RFID research published in 2017.

Now it feels like a good time to take a look at the research front again.

  • Have the research themes changed?
  • What are the new hot topics?
  • What should be expected for commercial use in the upcoming years?

First, a disclaimer: The selection of the introduced research papers and overview is my own. Summaries of the articles are short and written from my personal perspective. The points I raise are not necessarily the same as the authors’ intentions. When you find the topic interesting, I recommend clicking the link and reading the whole article.

I started the analysis by looking at the headlines of RFID research articles found in Google scholar, published in 2018 – 2020. I did a word count analysis of the headlines. The word count analysis gave me an idea of the research themes. Here is my take on the RFID research.

Wearable tags

A lot is going on around Wearable tags. This seems to indicate that RAIN RFID tags will be embedded in clothing and apparel in increasing numbers. The RFID applications should be designed to take these “out of system” tags to account.

Wearable tags will become more common

Sensor tags

An ongoing research topic is Sensor Tags. Using RAIN RFID as a means for transmitting information, almost anything can be sensed with RAIN RFID sensors. The trick is to find applications where RAIN RFID brings some unique benefit or a better fit to the application than other data transmission methods.

RAIN RFID tag’s backscatter signal strength changes when tag tilt angle changes, or when tag is exposed to different chemicals.

RFID in health and wellness

Health and wellness is an interesting and growingly versatile research area.

Wireless might work better

Printed Antennas, miniaturization, graphene, and specialty tags

Other hot research topics include printed antennas, tag miniaturization and graphene, and specialty tags

Author’s vision of an invisible tag attached to a window

RFID has a bright future ahead

Overall the research topics indicate increasing maturity in the RAIN RFID and NFC technologies. There is no need to study the basic viability of the technology, profitability, or efficiency of the basic use cases, or common manufacturing methods. Research works at the edges of the technology – and those edges are a good distance away from the everyday RFID and NFC use cases. New research is not needed to prove the RAIN RFID usability in supply chain or asset management in retail, manufacturing, or healthcare. Research is not needed for proving NFC’s suitability to travel tickets, access cards, or as a marketing tool.

Research can focus on “wilder and wilder” sensor integrations, the use of RFID in patient treatments, and other innovative and wonderful ideas out there. Strong research on RFID indicates a strong and healthy long-term future for the technology.

The Future of RAIN RFID Tag Design

Watch this webinar to hear our panel of three industry experts identify and discuss trends and disruptions that will affect the RAIN RFID tag industry, and how tagging implementations will change in the coming five years.

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Ensuring Reliable Operations of Multiple RAIN RFID Systems in Hospitals

Jan 13, 2021

About the author

15Teemu Ainasoja

I am Sales Director at Voyantic. I have over 15 years of experience from the RFID industry in Europe and the USA. I have two master's degrees: in industrial engineering and in marketing, and two patents in auto-ID technology. I am actively participating in RAIN RFID alliance activities.

Content

中文版 Chinese version

I recently gave a presentation at the RAIN Alliance and AIM EngageAgain event about the coexistence 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.

RAIN RFID in hospitals

There are plenty of documented RAIN RFID use cases for hospitals. These can be grouped into several categories:

  • Medicine supply chain tracking and inventory management
  • Medicine administration tracking
  • Patient tracking
  • Asset tracking
  • Tracking staff members and activities
  • Document tracking
  • Managing consumables inventory

These applications use several different types of RAIN RFID readers and plenty of RFID tags:

  • Handheld readers
  • Ceiling mount readers
  • Gate readers
  • Other fixed readers

  • Labels on medication
  • Labels on consumables
  • Embedded tags on consumables and workwear
  • Hard tags on assets
  • Labels on documents
  • Staff ID cards
  • Patient wristbands

There are also tags from other systems such as tags embedded in patients’ clothes.

Why does designing for the coexistence of RAIN RFID systems matter?

When RAIN RFID tags are read or counted, the reader sees all tags in the reading zone by default, even if there are obstacles, such as walls, in between. If the systems are not properly designed, it is easy to read unintended labels.

Example – An application for ensuring that the right patient gets the right medication at the right time: If coexistence is not considered, the system may be overwhelmed with all the tags in the environment: ID cards, tags on consumables, documents, assets, etc. The application fails as a result of the unexpectedly high number of tags.

Methods for enabling coexistence

There are several methods and tools available for enabling coexistence. Some of them can be used together, but not all of them are useful for every application and environment. The decision on which method or tool to use should be made on a case-by-case basis.

  • Frequency hopping with its interesting history is a functionality of RAIN RFID readers enabling multiple readers to operate at the same time. These reader features are on by default, just let the readers operate as they are intended.
  • Reader zoning is a method where a material blocking RF signals is used to isolate reading areas from each other. This cannot be used always but is worth considering. Read more about Reader Zoning from another blog article.
  • Power adjustment and antenna positioning can be used to adjust the readers’ reading areas. Smaller power enables reading from a closer range, and pointing antennas to different direction changes the reading area. These reader settings and antenna positions should always be optimized with fixed readers
  • Tag selection and tag quality specification should match the applications’ requirements. A short-range tag cannot be read from far, and a tag with a too long read range may create stray readings. Non-specified or low quality tags lead to inconsistent performance, which creates both missed reads and stray readings.
  • RSSI filtering is a method where the reader is set to ignore tags with a response signal that does not match the set criteria. The Response Signal Strength is only an indication of the distance between the tag and the reader, but nevertheless a useful method in some applications.
  • Code filtering and using Select is, in my opinion, the most important method and should always be used.

Code filtering and Select

RFID Tag Data Standards follow a structure where the beginning of the code defines which standard is being used, and the following parts define, in more and more detail, information about the tagged item.

For example, the EPC Tag Data Standard and ISO 15961 + ISO15962 Tag Data Standard have about 20 application areas included. The code structure allows filtering tags with codes at multiple levels, such as reading only document tags, reading only patient wristbands, or searching only for a specific tag, such as a staff ID card.

The filtering is done with the Select command in the inventory sequence.

An example – Inventory of medical packages:

  • The reader is set to use the select command as a part of the inventory cycle.
  • The select is set to consider only items with SGTIN codes and ignore everything else. SGTIN is an EPC Tag Data Standard Code that points to Trade Items – items that are sold and purchased. This would also show other trade items, consumables for example. Usually, this is not an issue, since the application is designed to handle a large number of codes, and items not in inventory are just shown unknown items and can be ignored at a software level.
  • Further filtering could be implemented by selecting only items manufactured by specific companies.

An example – Locating a person:

  • The reader is set to use the select command as a part of the inventory cycle.
  • The select is set to consider only GSRNP codes with a specific serial number, and ignore everything else. GSRNP is an EPC Tag Data Standard Code that points to Service providers, and serial number filters this down to an individual.

Filtering relevant tags with select command is a powerful method and should always be used. Use of filtering is based on using standard coding in all applications.

Watch the full presentation recording:

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Sourcing ARC Certified Labels – Harder Than You Think

Oct 21, 2020

About the author

19Emma Viitamäki

I have been working as the Supply Chain Coordinator at Voyantic since 2019. My job is to make sure that our customers get the products they have ordered and at the right time.

Content

日本語版 Japanese version

This blog post has been edited after its original publishing. The edits with their justifications are listed at the end of the post.

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. We had a plan to source 179 different labels, 50-100 pieces per label, from 16 label manufacturers.

Disclaimer: the pandemic affected the response and wait times for the labels. But even after taking this into consideration, it turned out that sourcing these RFID labels is hard, and requires a significant time investment. In this blog, we take a closer look at how the sourcing process unraveled.

Contacting Suppliers

We started the sourcing process from scratch: searched for the product online and utilized the company websites’ contact information for companies that supply ARC certified labels. This information was easily found, but we didn’t find any possibilities to purchase labels online. As we reached out to the companies, it became clear that we had encountered one of the main obstacles throughout this sourcing process.

About 50% of all the companies did not reply to our initial contact request. None of the companies with a contact form on the company website replied to the original message. In contrast, all companies that had a direct email address to a contact person on their website responded quickly. To reach the 50% that didn’t reply anything, we decided to look for familiar connections that someone at the office knew to get a response and to move forward with the project.

If the first inquiry goes unanswered, I wonder how many potential customers these days simply go with another supplier.

With no previous connections within the industry, we would probably not have been able to get more than half of the labels. Voyantic has been in the industry for over 15 years and we are well networked with tag suppliers. New companies that are interested in starting with RFID technology, however, might not start at all if it is this difficult to get relevant information and samples.

Starting Small Should Be an Option

Small order quantity seemed to be an issue for some companies and required special arrangements and more detailed information. The combination of poor communication and large sample quantities is not very inviting for new companies to start using RFID technology. Increasing awareness and lowering the bar of trying the technology without a significant investment could be crucial for spreading the use of RFID technology.

Customer Research or Interrogation?

We received a lot of questions about our purchase inquiry, e.g., could you share the purpose of your testing, and how will you use the results? Are you sourcing from other companies too? We had limited information to share about the use of the test results at this moment, and this seemed to be the other main issue in this process and, in some cases, even an insurmountable obstacle for purchasing the labels. Sharing this information shouldn’t be a requirement for buying label samples. It is good to gather information on how your customers are using your products to better meet their needs, but not to an extent where it makes the purchasing process slow and difficult or even impossible.

On a Positive Note

Despite the obstacles faced with many companies, some were straightforward to cooperate with and performed exemplary compared to the others. Some companies responded to the sample request the same day, and their samples were received within the following weeks. Some of the requested samples were obsolete, and some had been replaced with new ones, which slowed down the order process for some suppliers as it was very time consuming to agree on sufficient replacement products. However, one company was very helpful when we noticed the label we were looking for wasn’t available anymore. They suggested a comparable label that was shipped within a week.

Highs and Lows of Sample Tag Sourcing

Since we started this project at the beginning of March, we managed to obtain samples from 13 companies by July, but never got the labels from 3 other companies.

Most companies were easy to cooperate with, but in many cases, the sourcing process was extended by additional communications. A good network has been crucial to source the label samples, but also new connections were established, which is always positive.

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.

Edit on October 22nd 2020. After careful consideration and valuable feedback received from people commenting on the blog, we decided to omit references to specific companies. We feel that it is somewhat unfair to publicly praise some companies at the expense of others based on this sourcing experiment. There may be many reasons why companies have had different reactions to our requests, one of them being that they have recognized Voyantic as not a normal buyer. Finally, we still believe that the topic is important, and our sincere intention is to try to point out something that may be a problem in the industry, not specific companies.

Read more about buying tags from the buyers’s perspective. Download our free RAIN RFID tag buyer’s guide to get a more comprehensive understanding and an example request for a quotation!

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RAIN Man’s Letter to Santa 2019

Dec 20, 2019

About the author

16Juho Partanen

I enjoy seeing both the Voyantic employees and our customers thrive. The grand majority of my time goes into projects and initiatives that grow the RAIN RFID market in the long term. My remote office is on a boat on the archipelago of Finland.

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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 for the embracing of mistakes. Despite intensive mental training, I still find it difficult to embrace Brexit for any other aspect than the fact that apparently, it was what the majority of Britons want. In 2020 they are going to get it, and no Santa Claus is needed in the process.

I’ve also been pleased to note that through the year 2019 the tag flooding issue has been in discussions in RAIN meetings and beyond. This means awareness is increasing and technology vendors are better informed of how tag flooding can be dealt with.

2020 Prepares Vendors for a Global Harmonized Frequency Band

On the positive gains, the upper ETSI band is way clearer now – the globe will have a harmonized RAIN RFID frequency band. Germany remains a notable exception, but let’s not let that hold back the vast majority of deployment in other areas. The timeline for the adoption is still not clear due to the following reasons:

  1. The national regulatory bodies are not very transparent to outsiders on their progress
  2. The RAIN technology vendors, specifically reader and antenna manufacturers, don’t yet have all the needed products available
  3. The RAIN solution providers in Europe have not prepared themselves to endorse and take benefit of the new reader channels

With that said, would you kindly help turn the year 2020 into a preparatory period that clears the issues 2. And 3. off the table?

2020 – Tire Industry and Automotive to Find Common RFID Practices

After four years of work at the ISO TC31 WG 10, the ISO Tire RFID standard family already saw the publication of the first two sections, the ISO 20909 and ISO 20910. The two remaining ones are slightly late of schedule but should go public on H1/2020.

The publication of the ISO 20909 family marks an important milestone in the co-operation among tire manufacturers. What I would next hope to see is tire companies, automotive manufacturers, and related associations, such as VDA, to define common practices and thus enjoy maximal leverage of RAIN-enabled tires and other car parts.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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NFC-Powered Storytelling – A New Opportunity for Printing Companies

Oct 22, 2019

About the author

15Teemu Ainasoja

I am Sales Director at Voyantic. I have over 15 years of experience from the RFID industry in Europe and the USA. I have two master's degrees: in industrial engineering and in marketing, and two patents in auto-ID technology. I am actively participating in RAIN RFID alliance activities.

Content

中文版 Chinese version

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 event in Bangkok. Many printing companies are thinking about how to replace declining ink-on-paper business, and smart labels are a good option.

NFC Based Marketing is a Good Way to Start in Smart Labels

A frequent question from print houses is simple: “What should we do, how do we get started with smart labels?” Embedded in this simple question are a number of other questions:

  • How should we invest and what we need to buy?
  • What should we tell to customers to convince them about RAIN RFID or NFC?
  • How should we train staff from sales to operations?
  • and more

After the ASPT Symposium, we visited Doi Chaang Coffee, a Thai coffee company. The company is an example of using packages to support their brand story. And what a story they had! The way they supported it with bio-plastic materials and package visuals was just perfect. In my mind, the story connected to the print houses’ question of how to get started. And one clear answer started to emerge.

Obviously, following the NFC marketing route to smart label manufacturing is only one of the options, but I believe it is a good one. The approach can be used by printing houses regardless of their business area, location or details of operations.

Doi Chaang Coffee – the Story

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Good Story Makes a Great Foundation

The Doi Chaang story is an excellent example of how storytelling is used in brand building. Having a great story helps a lot and that is a big advantage for Doi Chaang. The storyline has its heroes and villains; there are ups and downs in the plot.

After learning the story, and connecting the brand with the names and faces of individuals the consumer connection is deeper. It is not just a cup of coffee, but it is a cup of coffee from Doi Chaang region, from Mr. Pikor Saedoo and his family to me. When a company can communicate such a personal story to its customers, the likelihood of buying again increases. It is a very efficient way to improve brand loyalty.

What About the NFC?

For Doi Chaang, creating the story itself is not a challenge, as it already exists as part of the brand. Currently, the users are directed to the story through images and slogans on packages and brochures. The challenge is to get the full story to as many customers as possible by finding the right channel.

NFC Delivers the Story

Every customer that visits or purchases the Doi Chaang coffee without learning the story can be perceived as a lost opportunity for both the customer and the company. And that has everything to do with NFC.

NFC-enabled labels have many advantages, starting from the simplicity of use when the only required step is to bring your smartphone to the NFC label. Another big advantage is the full control over the brand message – rules must be followed, but there are no third party format requirements, policies or procedures for advertising. Last but not least, it improves the experience for the customers, leaving them more loyal to the brand of coffee they are drinking. If done right, NFC labels can help to build customer knowledge and focus segmentation efforts to deliver relevant and targeted content. A brand could also choose to drive online sales simply by adding a “Tap and Buy” NFC tag on the item.

Placing “tap me” NFC tags to tables and counters at Doi Chaang shops is likely to get several persons to tap the tag and see what is the content. And the content could be a video of the Doi Chaang story. With NFC the lost opportunity is saved. For illustrating the possibility we produced few tags for our internal use at the office. And placed them next to the Doi Chaang coffee we served in our kitchen. And people took the opportunity to tap & learn more about the story.

So, What Should the Printing Companies Do?

We made the tags with the Reelsurance machine. And that brings up the last point. When a printing company starts smart label manufacturing three things should align:

  1. There must be a customer with a need for smart label,
  2. There must be production equipment for making that type of smart labels,
  3. And there must be skills and knowledge to produce those labels.

Any Company With a Brand Name is a Potential Customer

When all of the questions: to whom, what and how are open, answering them becomes extremely hard. There are a lot of standards around RAIN RFID and NFC, there are numerous technology choices, and anyone can really need almost anything; so how do you know where to start? In my opinion, starting with NFC labels encoding for marketing purposes is a good choice. I believe it is easy to find customers interested in enhancing their storytelling and marketing. That is “to whom”.

Learn the Basics

This choice limits the technology challenges. An easy way to start is to purchase blank NFC labels and start with personalization – printing, and encoding. The tags would be ISO14443A tags encoded with the NDEF URL message. Voyantic Reelsurance automates this, you only need to know the web address to encode and the system takes care of the technical details. The inlay must be chosen, and that is something Voyantic can help with in the beginning. We will ask a few simple questions and help you to write specifications you can use in purchasing the blank labels. There are more possibilities in NFC than using it as a gateway to a website URL. It gets easier to expand the knowledge when you have already made the first step.

Reelsurance Tests and Encodes NFC Labels

The investment decision is also easy. When the use case is as clear as this, Voyantic can offer the complete reel-to-reel machine with quality testing and encoding capability in a single delivery. And our support includes getting started in manufacturing. The machine is upgradeable, different NFC cases can be made with the same equipment, and expanding NFC to RAIN RFID is the next milestone to consider.

Do you have a question about implementing NFC or RAIN RFID? Contact us and we will be happy to discuss!

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NFC Tapping – Smartphone Performance Comparison

Jul 17, 2019

About the author

15Teemu Ainasoja

I am Sales Director at Voyantic. I have over 15 years of experience from the RFID industry in Europe and the USA. I have two master's degrees: in industrial engineering and in marketing, and two patents in auto-ID technology. I am actively participating in RAIN RFID alliance activities.

Content

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 a while ago. I tested a few smartphones for NFC tapping user-friendliness and dug a bit deeper into 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.

  1. Smart card: Think of a hotel keycard or a metro ticket. In my experience, NFC works smoothly and reliably in these applications. I have frequently had issues with magnetic stripe key cards, but NFC has worked perfectly. In these applications, a consumer carries the tag and a dedicated reader is used.
  2. Device-to-device: There are also emerging examples with excellent feedback of applications where 2 devices share information. For example, a phone placed to a center console of a car controls the settings of the car’s infotainment system.
  3. Simply tap: Third big promise of NFC is in applications where consumer carries a smartphone and interacts with NFC tagged items to receive more information. That is when the user experience changes – and not in a good direction.

The third application type – Simply tap – is the focus of this article.

Simply Tap Experience – Not So Simple

Promise: NFC works like waving a magic wand – simply tap.

It is a familiar situation: There is a web-link encoded to an NFC tag and the smartphone’s NFC is turned on. Enthusiastic user calmly extends the elbow and taps the tag with the top end of the phone – a move similar to a sorcerer waving a magic wand – but this time magic doesn’t happen.

Reality: Despite relentless tag rubbing with a smartphone – nothing happens.

Next try – slowly position the back cover of the phone on top of the tag – still nothing. Move the phone sideways on top of the tag; up to down; down to up; corner to corner – waving the magic wand did not work, maybe the NFC genie can be rubbed out from the tag. No. Check the settings. Try again. Ask a friend: “did you read it?” It should work – but it didn’t – no error message – nothing. A too common NFC user experience turns from a hopeful magic wand tapping into rubbing the NFC genie’s lamp into disappointment. What really happens? And what could be done for improving the user experience?

Digging Deeper: usually, NFC works, but details of the reading experience just don’t match the user’s expectations. In order to learn more, I looked more into what happens with smartphones and NFC. Here is what I found out.

Smartphone Reading Interval

Even if NFC is enabled, a phone is not reading NFC continuously. Instead, it checks occasionally if there is an NFC tag nearby waiting to be read. How often it is checked: As far as I know, there are no rules – most likely the interval depends on a lot of things: manufacturer’s preferences, operating system, power settings, other background applications taking up processor time, and many more. I tested two phones with Voyantic Protocol Analyzer. I found out that there is a big difference in how often phones try to read NFC tags.

Table 1. NFC Tapping With Phone Comparison – User Experience

Smartphone Reading Area

Different smartphones have different NFC reading areas. Reasons are not visible, but it is easy to come up with some ideas:

  • Different antenna positioning
  • Different antenna size and quality
  • Effect of nearby components
  • Different power levels

All in all, pointing a phone to an NFC tag is done differently from model to model.

Using phones’ default settings, I tested two phones.

  • With phone model A:
    the ideal position was pointing upper part of the phone in 30-degree angle towards the tag
  • With phone model B:
    the ideal position was slightly below the top part of the phone

Table 2. NFC Tapping With Phone Comparison – Positioning

Some phone models inform the user about the antenna position on the NFC setting screen, or in the startup screen. But some leave the antenna position hidden, only to be discovered by the user by relentless rubbing and experimenting.

NFC Tag Placement

In the first tests, the NFC tag was completely visible for the user, and it was possible to touch the tag. This is not always the case. In the second test I used Voyantic Reference Material Set to simulate “tap the window” use case. The inlay was behind a business card, which was behind a sheet of glass. The user experience changed completely – and not in a good direction.

A small change in tag placement can have a huge effect

Few millimeters between the phone and the inlay – slight detuning from the glass and the fact that exact inlay position was not known made things difficult. Some tags conveniently readable on air were not readable on “tap the window” application, and with most tags, exact phone positioning was needed.

Table 3. NFC Tapping With Phone Comparison – Through Glass

NFC Tag Sensitivity and Tuning

The above tests were made using an NFC inlay with 35 mm diameter round antenna – something that could be conveniently used in a price tag in a retail store. But tags are not equal. The inlay I used required 225 mA/m magnetic field strength for activation. When I tested two other “price tag size” NFC inlays with Voyantic Tagformance Pro the required activation energies were 750 mA/m and 1500 mA/m. Sensitivity and quality of the tag have an effect on the user experience.

Chart 1. Tag Sensitivity

When activation power increases, the practical effect is that a range of positions on which a tag can be read decreases. With both of the tested phones even weaker tags worked well when the reading position was optimal and touching the tag was possible. But slightly “mis-tapping” the tag left it unread and testing the “tap the window” use-case with phone model A was unsuccessful.

Too commonly NFC tag performance and quality are not really tested and suitability to an application is not properly evaluated. Often only antenna is tested with passive testing made with network analyzer – result tells about the antenna tuning, but that is not the full view to the NFC tag. When the chip is attached to the antenna, and when the tag is attached to an item, the tuning changes. And passive testing does not really tell anything about the required activation energy, which is the key. Only active testing tells the entire story. Below graph shows one NFC tag individual tested in 4 scenarios. Tag attached to a glass, tag on air, and antenna only.

Chart 2. Active and Passive Tests

Smartphone Functionality

The test was made with two phone models, one equipped with an Android operating system and another with Windows. Both of these try reading NFC tag periodically when the NFC is turned on, without any additional applications. The full list of NFC-enabled phones is available here.

iPhone and IOS were not tested since iPhone only allows reading NFC tag with a separate application – without it no amount magic wand-waving or rubbing the NFC genie works. An upcoming iOS 13 is supposed to change this.

How Could NFC Systems Be Improved?

What can the user do?
There is not much a user can do, the only reasonable thing is to “know ones phone”: How long it takes to read a tag and what is the best reading position. The best way to find these out is to take a working tag and try. No rubbing – just touch the tag with phones top few seconds using different positions and angles. In reality, the responsibility to improve user experience lies almost entirely on technology providers.

What can system integrators do?
System integrators control several items of the system: Which tag is used, how the tag is placed, how the tag is presented and so on.

  • User expectations should be steered to match the actual technology performance. Maybe replacing “tap me” with another phrase such as “tap to download” would steer the user to a longer action than a quick tap.
  • When personalizing the tags the “tap me” text should indicate accurately the NFC inlay position. Incorrect or inaccurate positioning decreases the usability and results in bad user experience.
  • Selecting the correct tag for an application is the cornerstone of a well-functioning NFC system. Applications and items vary – Sometimes it is possible to touch the tag with below 1 mm distance – sometimes the applications may require few millimeters reading distance. Tag tuning may also be affected by different materials on which the tag is attached. If a wrong tag is used, the system works poorly or not at all.

What can smartphone manufacturers do?
Smartphone manufacturers control the main interface between the NFC system and the user. If the interface works reliably and the use matched expectations, the system is likely to work well.

  • NFC reading should be enabled on smartphones without a separate application
  • Reading interval should be short enough to enable the smooth user experience
  • The phone’s antenna quality and positioning should allow intuitive “tap and read” in different scenarios: tag on table and tag on the wall.
  • It would help system integrators and tag manufacturers to know the phone profiles – how strong the magnetic field the phone’s NFC reader can generate at different distances. This data could be compared with the required activation energies in different applications.

What can NFC tag manufacturers do?
NFC tag is the second technical item in an NFC system. Well performing good quality NFC tags are obviously the tag manufacturers’ responsibility.

  • Tag manufacturers should ensure that tag sensitivity is sufficient and quality matches the application and expected user experience. Materials between phone and tag should be taken into account.
  • When printing the tag the “tap me” or other guiding text should be correctly placed and guide user expectations to the right direction.

What should NFC forum do?
NFC Forum is known for creating and maintaining the NFC standards and advocating NFC use among other industries and to consumers. In my opinion, this is also a source for some of the user experience issues.

  • In addition (or even instead) of standardizing the NFC tag performance with technical terms such as defining activation magnetic field, NFC Forum could standardize (or at least recommend) user experience criteria. A tag may have one activation energy but the user experience changes, if the tag is placed on cardboard, versus behind a window. User experience should be similar in both cases. Complexity increases further if the same performance criteria is forced to device to device and smart card applications. In my opinion, the user experience requirements should be different for the three application types
  • NFC forum should recommend system integrators and manufacturers to indicate clearly where the tag is placed, and where the phone´s antenna is. Discussion on this topic are on-going among NFC Forum members, and I have seen excellent practical ideas.

I am eagerly looking forward to the bright future of simply tap NFC.

Do you have any thoughts or questions about the NFC tapping? Contact us – I would be happy to discuss this in more detail!

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Radio Equipment Directive Safeguards RAIN RFID Users and Vendors

Jun 24, 2019

About the author

16Juho Partanen

I enjoy seeing both the Voyantic employees and our customers thrive. The grand majority of my time goes into projects and initiatives that grow the RAIN RFID market in the long term. My remote office is on a boat on the archipelago of Finland.

Content

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 Vendors and End-users

At first thought one could arrive at a hasty assessment: RED is nonsense – nothing more than a cost-of-doing-business with very little reward for anyone besides testing service providers. Moreover, it adds to the cost of technology for end users and slows down the go-to-market process. Who reads 45 pages of standard text these days anyhow…

I see RED in a different light: the directive aims at utilizing the limited frequency spectrum that we have at maximum benefit to those utilizing the spectrum according to regulations. This means various radio systems can co-exist, can be relied on, and don’t put the health of users at risk. And looking at the most relevant document ETSI EN 302 208, there is actually 69 pages most of which you can discard.

RED requirements for RAIN RFID systems operating at lower and upper ETSI frequency band

RAIN Tags to be Tested in Their Typical Environment

For RAIN RFID vendors it’s important to understand RED testing is necessary for RAIN components, including tags and all types of readers. As I focus on tags specifically, the different nature of a RAIN tag and a RAIN tagged item needs to be considered. This is an aspect where the directive requires interpretation. Chapter 4.1 “Environmental profile” states that “The technical requirements of the present document apply under the environmental profile for the operation of the equipment, which shall be declared by the supplier”.

My practical interpretation is, that if someone is providing a windshield tag, it should be tested while attached to a windshield. At the same time, it’s not necessary to test the windshield tag on all the windshields in the market.

Direction of Maximum Gain is Interesting

Under “Tag Conformance Requirements” the clause 4.5.1.2 “Definition” states that

The effective radiated power of a tag is the power radiated by its antenna in its direction of maximum gain under specified conditions of measurement.

For the example of a windshield tag, the direction of maximum gain probably raises no debate.
However, as you take an on-metal tag with a resonating antenna structure and attach it on a couple of randomly selected metallic objects, you will arrive at various orientation patterns. It’s, therefore, necessary for a vendor really to consider what a “typical environment” is for a specific RAIN tag type.

All Common Types of Smart Labels Need to be Tested

Back at the RFID Tomorrow event in Darmstadt 2018, I gave a presentation with a reference to RED and RAIN tags. The picture below shows what test aspects of RAIN tags RED specifically looks at.

Followed by that I presented a slide “Reason for Concern”. In October 2018 I thought that generic smart labels would easily pass RED tests. With the new experience gathered I today need to slightly revise my message: it’s very necessary to test and make sure the backscatter signal strength stays within the limits!

How to Test for Compliance With RED?

Our superhero engineers have implemented RED tag test capabilities into the Voyantic Tagformance system. A white paper describes how tests can be conducted at different levels of accuracy. As quite many in the RAIN industry have access to a Tagformance, a system upgrade with an ETSI RED test kit brings the necessary testing capability quickly available.

Download Whitepaper

The tests themselves are straightforward and even relatively quick to implement. Also, the results evaluation is made easy. The whole procedure is illustrated in a tutorial video:

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Do You Have an Alternative to Following RED?

In fact, you do, because following a harmonized standard is voluntary. This path is addressed in FAQs for RED, but to paint the essence in a nutshell: Those who choose not to comply with the RED follow a conformity assessment procedure where they demonstrate to a notified body that the product complies with all the necessary requirements. The manufacturer assumes full responsibility and liability.

That’s the story today. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.

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Using TIPP Tagged Item Performance Protocol Outside Retail

May 02, 2019

About the author

15Teemu Ainasoja

I am Sales Director at Voyantic. I have over 15 years of experience from the RFID industry in Europe and the USA. I have two master's degrees: in industrial engineering and in marketing, and two patents in auto-ID technology. I am actively participating in RAIN RFID alliance activities.

Content

中文版 Chinese version

GS1 RAIN RFID Performance Standard Helps to Scale up RFID Across Industries

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.

Why Performance Specification is a Thing?

Most RAIN RFID system deployments cover a single use case, utilizing one type of tags in one way. When users become familiar with the system and learn about the possibilities, the deployment starts expanding:

  • New types of readers are added
  • New types of items are tagged
  • New use cases are added.

End users naturally expect that all the components have solid readability across the entire deployment. At the same time scaling up typically creates a need to use several tagging suppliers. This ultimately creates the need to specify performance instead of purchasing a tag model.

Keyword is “Scalability”

GS1 TIPP is a Ready Solution

GS1 Tagged Item Performance Protocol (TIPP) was originally developed for retail use. The methodology is universal and works perfectly for any RAIN user industry such as pharma, healthcare or automotive. The performance classes aka grades and methodology are already used in several applications beyond retail. Adopting GS1 TIPP is easy when a working tag and tagging method has been found:

  1. The item or group of items can be tested in minutes for finding out which performance classes it fulfills.
  2. The test outcome is the performance specification.
  3. In addition, tagging instructions and quality requirements are created easily.

For example:

Tagging instructions: Item X is tagged by placing the tag on the top part, as shown in the photo above
Performance specification: Tagged item performance should meet TIPP grade S30B
Quality specification: Inlay quality variation should be within +/- 2dB
Encoding specification: The tag should be encoded with 96bit SGTIN code and permalocked.

Scale up by leveraging existing standards

There are several benefits for adopting GS1 TIPP standard:

  • Dozens of tag manufacturers have the TIPP test capability in-house.
    The specifications would be quick to roll out.
  • There are several third-party test centers offering testing-as-a-service in several continents.
    Anyone has access to the testing.
  • The standard already includes several performance grades – with high probability one of these performance classes can be used in any application in any industry.
  • There is a self-improving methodology included. If there are no suitable grades for a new industry or application, a new grade can be added and it is automatically distributed to tag manufacturers globally.

Re-inventing the Wheel Creates New Problems

Developing new, parallel methods brings problems: new investments would be needed, and communicating new requirements with new ways to dozens of tag manufacturers globally is risky and slow. All in all, the adoption would be slow and instead of helping to scale up the industry a new bottleneck may emerge. It took industry experts more than four years to develop the GS1 TIPP into a global standard, which only shows how extremely slow it is to create a new standard.

In my opinion, the best way to scale up is to leverage the existing EPC standards, and GS1 TIPP is one of the standards in the EPC standards family.

Do you have any thoughts or questions about the GS1 TIPP methodology? Contact us – I would be happy to discuss this in more detail!

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