Wow... yesterdays blog on read ranges created quite a stir. I'm guessing a lot of people are running Generation 1 readers and haven't gotten ahold of some of the latest stuff, good antennas, or both.
Rather than edit yesterdays blog, I thought I'd address a few questions:
1) Your numbers are crazy -- you can't read tags that far. Even Avery/Alien don't claim they can read tags that far...
So, here's the deal... Yes, we can. Yes, we do. I don't have a video camera, but my wife's asked for one for her birthday. If she somehow gets one and lets me borrow it, I'll post a video.*
2) Who's the 'other' tag?
Look, I want to talk about the good things and the winners and what RFID can do. This chart was meant to say, "The AD222 is great and is a great workhouse but AD224 is the next generation and it's better." I shouldn't have mentioned an 'other' tag in the graph. My apologies. My point is -- not just AVERY has solutions. RFID is maturing fast. Other vendors are helping spur growth in the RFID industry and it's getting better.
We like most of the technology vendors on the market but we specialize in one because it helps us be experts at one thing rather than generally bad at many things. This blog wasn't meant as a ding to anyone -- only that RFID is working well and if you haven't considered some of the latest technology, please do take a look. Whether you use FEIG, Motorola, Alien, or ThingMagic -- they are all solid vendors. Play with your antenna selections, cables, mounting positions, RF reflectivity -- you'll see dramatic differences in quality and readability.
Here's a sample, comprehensive report from Avery Dennison on read quality of an AD 222. AD 222 Report
Notice in this report, they are showing 20' on an AD222 on a liquid (antifreeze) using ThingMagic M4's. Now, the M4 is a great, great, great reader. But, it's not an M5. M4 was a Generation 1 conversion. The M5 is a technical generation beyond the M4. I haven't seen any other reader manufacturers release something at the same technical level as the M5. I hear Impinj technology ( formerly Intel technology ) has a killer chipset and that chipset is now in some new designs coming from ThingMagic and will make even the M5 seem sedentary. Anyhow, point is... This technology is moving fast. Antenna, Readers, Cables, Tags are all changing every six months.
The most important aspect: just do it. It works.
* Note that NOX does have video integrated with RFID and I've asked some folks to pull some feed showing read ranges. Hope to get something up for you soon...
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