The following are news announcements made during the past week by the following organizations:
SMARTRAC;
HID Global;
Sionic Mobile;
Impinj;
Convergence Systems Ltd., Seveco; and
Estimote.
SMARTRAC Introduces Ready-to-Use Animal ID Implanting Kit
RFID technology provider SMARTRAC has announced the launch of InTrace Cannula, an enhanced transponder-implanting system for easy and efficient RFID-tagging of most animal species, including pets, cattle, sheep, horses, fish, birds or reptiles, the company says.
The InTrace product contains three components in a single blister package: a cannula; a SMARTRAC Glass Tag pre-installed in the cannula; and six bar-coded stickers for registration, for recording veterinarian treatment or for use by an animal’s owner. The glass tag complies with international ISO 11784 and11785 standards and is available globally, with three different sizes of transponder, made from biocompatible glass. The package is programmed with SMARTRAC’s specific ICAR code, or optionally can carry a manufacturer or country code provided by the customer.
According to SMARTRAC, the thin, stainless-steel cannula features a facet cut that ensures a fast and easy injection. The cannula package comes with a luer lock connector, a mandrin and a protective cap at the needle tip. The mandrin—a slim, plastic stick inside the cannula—is designed for single implantation, thereby preventing the cannula from being used more than once, and thus avoiding the possibility of transmission of infection resulting from using the same cannula on multiple animals. In addition, the company reports, the mandrin, together with a tiny silicon dot inside the needle tip, prevents the transponder’s accidental dropout at either end of the cannula. The InTrace product is ethylene oxide gas-sterilized and germ-free for a minimum duration of five years after production.
Optionally, transponders can be delivered with a parylene coating, a feature that, according to SMARTRAC, stabilizes the tag’s position under the animal’s skin. In addition, the data encoded on the animal transponder is suitable for full integration into the company’s cloud services platform, SMART COSMOS.
HID Global Releases TapMark Surface-Mount Transponders
HID Global has introduced TapMark, a new family of slim ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) transponders complying with the EPC Gen 2 and ISO 18000-6C standards. TapMark tags are designed for surface-mount applications, according to the company, including furniture, office equipment or thousands of IT assets ranging from personal computers to a complex data center.
The tags are made with Impinj‘s Monza R6 chip, which offers 96 bits of read-write Electronic Product Code (EPC) memory delivering read rates up to three times faster than those of previous generation tags, according to HID Global. In addition, HID Global reports, the Monza R6’s TagFocus feature improves read reliability, especially when large, dense populations of tags are present, and its AutoTune functionality compensates for changing environmental conditions to retain optimal performance. The transponders’ read range is up to 9.8 feet (3 meters).
The small, thin-profile TapMark transponders are available with a variety of mounting options—including zip-ties, industrial adhesives, magnets and screws—for affixing to any surface, including metal, the company says. Two types of high-bond stickers are available to attach the tag to flat or uneven surfaces with excellent durability, the firm reports. A special antenna design allows the tag to be affixed via a metallic screw right through the middle of the tag, for optimal fit without affecting tag performance. Measurements range from 1.5 inch by 0.5 inch by 0.2 inch (38 millimeters by 13 millimeters by 4.3 millimeters) for the zip-tie, screw-mount or adhesive version to 1.5 inch by 0.5 inch by 0.25 inch (38 millimeters by 13 millimeters by 6.0 millimeters) for the magnet-mount tag.
HID Global TapMark tags may be ordered personalized with custom encoding, printed logos, Bar-/QR-code or text and alternative colors.
Sionic Mobile Adds iBeacons to Loyalty App
Sionic Mobile, which operates a merchant exchange that provides low-cost payment applications bundled with mobile marketing and customer loyalty apps to businesses, as well as instant rewards to consumers at checkout, has announced the addition of complimentary Apple iBeacon-compatible beacons to its ION Loyalty small-business merchants app. The app has been enhanced to monitor the iBeacon with little or no impact on the mobile device battery, and the company reports that during the coming weeks, its consumer app, known as ION Rewards, along with partner apps reaching nearly 100 million mobile customers, will be updated to take advantage of the iBeacons.
ION Loyalty for small businesses is an alternative to Square, PayPal Here and other mobile payment systems. Merchants are able to process mobile payments quickly and securely on their smartphone or tablet using a proprietary, three-digit code checkout process, eliminating the need for extra hardware.
Sionic Mobile selected beacons that support Apple’s iBeacon technology, continuing its support of in-store, one-tap checkouts using Apple Watch, and enabling small businesses and local merchants to leverage the same mobile technology as larger, big-box retail chains, but with no upfront costs or investments.
In a prepared statement, Ronald Herman, Sionic Mobile’s CEO and founder, said the company believes small businesses are the cornerstone of our economy. “We are committed to delivering sophisticated mobile solutions that meet the unique needs of these local merchants,” he said. “ION Loyalty is simple to use, and eliminates the traditional barriers like rising costs, hardware and software requirements, or simply lack of time and resources that up until now, have prevented many small business owners from taking advantage of the mobile opportunity. In less than 10 minutes, a small business owner can be up and running on ION Loyalty, and with the new iBeacons, the customer experience is far superior to other mobile apps available today.”
Herman added in the statement that small businesses must have a mobile strategy that goes beyond just payments, and instead enhances the overall customer experience to remain competitive and relevant in today’s market.
Impinj to Issue 4.6 Million Shares of Common Stock in IPO Bid
Seattle-based ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID technology company Impinj plans to issue 4.6 million shares of common stock, and the option of nearly 700,000 more to existing investors, according to a July 11 amendment that the company made to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing it registered early last month.
On June 2, Impinj registered with the SEC its plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO), indicating its goal of raising $60 million (see Impinj Hopes to Raise $60M From IPO). The company said it had applied to list its common stock on the NASDAQ global market under the symbol “PI,” but at the time did not indicate how many shares it expects to issue, or the expected initial per-share offering price.
The amendment reports that Impinj expects to price its IPO between $12 and $14 per share. If all shares sell for $14, the company could raise slightly more than $74 million. At the low end, the firm hopes to raise at least $55.2 million.
Impinj has not yet announced when it plans to go public with the offering.
CSL Completes Management Buyout, Adds Seveco as Strategic Investor
Convergence Systems Ltd. (CSL), a provider of passive RFID products and active real-time location system (RTLS) equipment, has announced that its management has completed the purchase of the company from the original investors.
To support them in their buyout effort, CSL’s management reached out to their company’s primary manufacturing partner, Seveco Global Ltd. The agreement with Seveco includes an investment and long-term financial commitment. Financial details have yet been not disclosed.
CSL says it will maintain business operations in three locations: Hong Kong is home to product development and global sales; Dongguan, China, is the manufacturing site for all of the company’s products; and Dallas, Texas, is the site of warehouse operations for North American sales, as well as for local manufacturing requirements. CSL will continue to support existing RFID product lines, the company reports, and has plans for expansion.
“We are pleased that our original investors supported our desire to complete a 100 percent acquisition of the company with a very smooth transaction. All of our team is extremely pleased and motivated by the outcome,” said Jerry Garrett CSL’s managing director, in a prepared statement. “The inclusion of Seveco as a strategic investor brings additional strong engineering and production expertise, as well as better economies of scale for expansion.”
Ed Lee, Seveco’s founder and CEO, added in the statement that CSL represents a strong global brand with a proven track record of engineering high-quality products for the RFID industry. “Seveco’s skills are very complementary with those of CSL, and we look forward to fully supporting them as they launch a series of new RFID products and solutions,” he said.
Estimote Announces Proximity Beacons With Programmable NFC Functionality
Estimote, a developer of beacons that employ Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)—also known as Bluetooth Smart—technology, has announced an updated version of its Proximity Beacon with programmable Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality. The beacons integrate the latest nRF52 BLE chip from Nordic Semiconductor, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in ultra-low-power (ULP) short-range wireless communication. To make use of the nRF52’s on-chip NFC tag, Estimote has also added an NFC antenna.
Estimote beacons and stickers are tiny proximity computers that contain an ARM processor and memory, and utilize Bluetooth Smart technology to transmit unique ID numbers that trigger actions on smartphones or other BLE-enabled devices. Powered by coin batteries, they can be strategically placed virtually anywhere within a building or on the outside grounds. Through the tiny radio signals broadcasted by the beacons, smart devices within range can receive those signals, and compatible installed apps can then respond.
According to Estimote, the updated beacons feature programmable NFC RFID functionality and are 30 percent more energy-efficient, allowing improved responsiveness without compromising battery life. The default battery life is still more than two years, the company notes, but customers can now prioritize the beacon’s lifetime over improved responsiveness and thus enable it last for as long as seven years. According to the company, the new firmware, announced alongside Estimote’s new Location Beacons in February, adds optimized power consumption, faster and more secure configuration and firmware update process, and connectionless sensor and battery data via the Estimote Telemetry packet.
NFC technology has enabled Estimote to implement a tap-to-configure feature, simplifying beacon deployments and testing, the company reports, and also opens up a host of new possibilities for businesses looking to utilize proximity and microlocation, ranging from payments to loyalty. With the fully programmable NFC functionality, Estimote explains, customers can set up as many NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) records as they’d like—up to 256 bytes in total, all through Estimote’s secure configuration application programming interface (API). Using Estimote’s fleet-management API, customers can reconfigure the records remotely.
With Android’s current built-in NFC support, Estimote says, the new beacons also open up another channel for app distribution. The NFC memory can be programmed with an Android app’s unique identifier, and then, when a user touches a smartphone to that beacon, the app page will open in the Google Play Store. Once Instant Apps is available in the next version of Android, Estimote reports, it could run an app without installation. In addition, the company indicates, because the Estimote Android app already supports Proximity Beacon’s NFC functionality, identifying and configuring beacons simply requires a tap with a smartphone, and the Estimote app will automatically open and connect to it.
A developer’s kit featuring three new Proximity Beacons will cost $59, with shipping expected to begin later this month.