RFID News Roundup

By Rich Handley

RFiD Discovery, BuzzStreets offer healthcare wayfinding, asset tracking; RF Code, Links Technology partner on remote environmental monitoring; Temera, MERMEC Engineering enable sustainability for fashion brands; XO2Tech releases AI-barcodes designed to work with RFID tags; FDA approves modification to Medtronic BLE insulin-monitoring tech; Linxens updates its Steel Tag tracker.

May 11, 2023Presented here are recent news announcements in the radio frequency identification and Internet of Things industries.

RFiD Discovery, a provider of identification and location-tracking solutions, has partnered with BuzzStreets, an indoor navigation platform provider, to offer a combined wayfinding and asset-tracking solution for healthcare providers that can assist personnel and patients. This partnership, according to the companies, is designed for healthcare facilities seeking to improve patient care and operational efficiency.

The solution will utilize RFiD Discovery's RFID asset-tracking technology, which allows healthcare providers to manage medical equipment, consumables and high-value items, including implants, in real time. Adding indoor navigation technology will enable patients, visitors and staff members to navigate hospitals, the companies explain. The technology is intended to reduce the number of patient no-shows or late arrivals, while reducing the need for patients to ask for directions.

For those requiring an accessible route, the software can provide a personalized navigation service—for example, by suggesting stair-free routes to wheelchair users. In addition, the technology can help new employees or locums unfamiliar with a hospital to find their way around. The software provides vital data for analysis, enabling healthcare settings to plan the most efficient routes to get people where they need to be.

RF Code, a provider of automated, real-time physical asset lifecycle management and environmental monitoring solutions, has announced a partnership with Links Technology Solutions to provide autonomous, uninterrupted visibility and observability of critical IT in lights-out locations at scale. The managed service provider is now a licensed reseller of RF Code's Sentry device, the company's software-as-a-service for decentralized edge-computing locations.

Sentry is intended for MSPs dealing with servers and remote client sites that have climate-controlled environments. The solution is a scalable real-time IT asset and environmental monitoring solution. With a single Sentry console deployed in an edge environment, MSPs and enterprises can see, hear and secure unmanned edge environments to prevent, mitigate and remediate IT situations threatening to disrupt business operations. Sentry is available through direct-sale and partner channels.

"Traditional data-center solutions don't apply to distributed locations, as they are complex and expensive, and present their own set of unique challenges that are not applicable to remote locations," said Dale Quayle, RF Code's CEO, in a prepared statement. "First, distributed locations make administration, monitoring, data management, security, status awareness and general visibility a challenge. Secondly, edge locations run 'lights out' or unsupervised, creating challenges around managing physical access, controlling IT equipment, as well as the ability to quickly identify and remediate issues when they arise."

Temera, a supplier of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for traceability and digitization in fashion and luxury, has announced a partnership with MERMEC Engineering, which offers integrated solutions for the rail, aerospace, aviation and digital mechatronics sectors. The resultant product, t!Upcycling, is intended to improve the circular-economy efforts of fashion and luxury brands by combining technology-based solutions using artificial intelligence (AI), machine vision and digital Near Field Communication (NFC) tags. Temera is part of Beontag, while MERMEC is part of Angel Holding.

The solution can help businesses get ahead of European Union laws preventing the destruction of surplus products, the companies explain, noting that only a minority of brands are capable of upcycling their products. Operators specializing in this area must often resort to visual classifications of products, identifying one piece at a time. The system is designed to automate part of this process, using data provided by companies to improve logistics and boost efficiencies.

Through multi-modal identification, which involves the integrated use of RFID and machine vision technologies, the system can recognize any object in any case, the companies indicate, including those without RFID tags. It uses a camera in a controlled light environment and an RFID reader to detect and recognize items to be upcycled. t!Upcycling can provide operators with the correct information for the disposal and disassembly of specific products, allowing them to re-introduce items into the production chain of useful materials.

"The goal," said Francesco Pieri, Temera's CEO, in a prepared statement, "is to help brands certify the products they recycle. By combining multiple technologies and capabilities in this one solution, we can transform and extend the life of these items and their raw materials. At the same time, automating the recognition process using AI resources, and bypassing the current manual recognition of products for disposal… The pilot project has been carried out on bags and shoes and, in the future, will be applied to other product classes as well."

XO2Tech has announced its AI-Barcodes, which it says are designed to democratize food safety and sensor technology access, and to empower consumer decisions regarding food product management and authenticity. AI-Barcodes enable retailers and consumers to make informed, sustainable and healthy food choices, the company reports.

The technology leverages artificial intelligence and conversational AI to provide sensor readings for food management and product authenticity. Users can scan a food product's barcode with a smartphone to receive that item's current sensor readings, or to view the product's supply chain history. They can access product marketing information, including coupons, recalls, nutrition, recipes and carbon footprint impact.

According to XO2Tech, AI-Barcodes can work with RFID tags. They can function with RFID to allow users in a retail setting to read generative RFID sensors attached to products by using their smartphone without directly utilizing an RFID reader. A retailer could use RFID readers to collect sensor data, which consumers could then read via the AI-Barcodes. This, the company explains, allows smartphones to access RFID sensor data and overcome smartphone limitations.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a modification to Medtronic's MiniMed 770G system to enable firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updates. The system is a hybrid closed-loop solution intended to automatically monitor glucose levels and adjust the delivery of insulin, based on continuous glucose monitor values for those living with type 1 diabetes mellitus.

The FOTA feature will enable Medtronic to distribute firmware wirelessly, the company reports, allowing patients to receive firmware updates to their Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)-enabled MiniMed 770G insulin pump without the need for the pump to be returned. The FOTA update will allow current 770G pump users to upgrade their pump firmware to the recently approved MiniMed 780G firmware, which adds new features to Medtronic's SmartGuard technology.

Linxens has launched a new version of its Steel Tag tracker equipped with NXP Semiconductors' latest UCODE memory product. In the industrial manufacturing and logistics industries, visibility and traceability are key issues, Linxens explains, as are performance and reliability, and the tracker has been updated with that in mind.

Linxens says it chose the UCODE 9xm due to its feature set, encoding process and flexibility, provided by a customer-configurable, high-capacity Electronic Product Code and user memory. The tracker can be fixed directly to containers, allowing items and their quantities to be recorded and identified. According to the company, the device is suitable for the returnable transport items market, as well as the automotive industry.