Nov 16, 2016PRESS RELEASE:
The complex manufacturing of custom-branded Near Field Communication (NFC) labels has been a barrier to the broader adoption of NFC technology. This concerns especially high-volume applications such as smart packages, as well as print media and mass event advertising. Confidex has announced its Confidex Links product line to meet these market requirements, and to offer easy access to affordable printed and encoded NFC tags in high volumes.
"Confidex has manufactured highly personalized, high-quality mass-transportation tickets since 2005 and, in so doing, has delivered over 600 million NFC-compliant products into the global markets," said Mikko Nikkanen, Confidex's marketing director, in a prepared statement. "We would like to offer this high-end manufacturing knowledge for everyday use-cases for consumer products such as smart packages, print media, as well as for industrial applications. With our new modular product approach, high manufacturing capacity and our global distribution channels, we are ready to ship the next 100 million custom printed and encoded Confidex Links for various mass NFC applications around the world."
Confidex Links are stickers that can be placed anywhere or be embedded in packages or in a product. The labels connect online content to any physical product, for the easy sharing of product manuals, videos, apps, mobile games, websites or other content via NFC technology.
Confidex Links' standard product form factor is an adhesive label measuring 25 millimeters by 25 millimeters (1 inch by 1 inch), with multiple options regarding printing, branding, content encoding and special adhesives. The NFC stickers are based on NXP Semiconductors' NTAG chip family. Confidex Links are available with a low-memory NTAG210µ chip for tiny links, an NTAG213 chip for standard NFC media usage, and an NTAG216 chip for high-memory applications, such as business cards and Bluetooth/Wi-Fi pairing.
"NXP is committed to driving innovation for the Internet of Things. As part of this commitment, we develop products that enable industrial and consumer solutions to benefit from the ease of connectivity with NFC," said Alexander Rensink, NXP's segment manager for consumer interaction, in the prepared statement. "We are excited that Confidex uses our latest NTAG products to provide such a versatile tag offering. This will allow brand owners to introduce new creative ways of engaging with their customers through NFC-enabled smart products."
Modularity is further extended into Confidex's IP68-rated hard tag, the Ironside Micro NFC, which features a hard plastic casing for on-metal applications. The Confidex Links product line is available in sampling volumes during the fourth quarter of 2016, and is expected to be released in volumes during the first quarter of next year.
