Last week we wrote about ThingMagic’s compact new RFID reader, Astra, which is designed to fit into small spaces such as office ceilings, allowing more kinds of organizations to use RFID technology to track tagged items. This week ThingMagic is bringing out an additional set of products intended to help organizations experiment with RFID technology.
It’s a trio of “development kits” that include all the hardware and software engineers need to write and read RFID tags. The kits, which are available from a ThingMagic web storefront that opened today, cost $1,495 and include one of the company’s three embedded RFID reader modules along with a chassis, connectors, antenna cable, power converter, and other hardware. The kits also come with ThingMagic’s RFID firmware (which is the same for all three reader modules) and sample RFID tags.
Up to now, RFID technology has been deployed mainly in warehouses and retail locations, where it’s used to keep track of tagged packages and products. The point of the kits is to help potential ThingMagic customers and partners come up with new applications of RFID technology, moving toward the “Internet of things” envisioned by ThingMagic’s founders.
They could use the development kits, for example, to build and test prototype devices that contain embedded RFID readers, the way ThingMagic itself has worked with Ford Motor Company and DeWalt to put RFID readers in the beds of Ford 150 trucks, where they scan for tagged construction tools.
Many ThingMagic customers and business partners are “eager to explore, research and develop embedded and mobile RFID solutions that require small form factors and low power requirements,” ThingMagic CTO and co-founder Yael Maguire said in a statement. “The development kits include everything they need to experiment with, design and develop RFID applications that meet these needs.”
