Hussar Card Tag is used for School Attendance in Singapore (Business Case Sharing)

A primary school in Singapore has recently implanted our RFID technology to the campus management of student attendance. 

With this new generation campus management system, the school has no longer needed to manually track and manage student attendance. They can now easily capture the time and attendance for classes and school automatically with the ability to access attendance history on the computer or through other smart devices.

This RFID campus management system mainly consists three parts.

1. RFID readers and antennas are installed at the pedestrian entry gates to detect the direction of student’s movement with accurate time record. 
2. Every student will be given an RFID-enabled student card. The card will be detected when the student passes through the entry gate. 
3. The system is backed up by a customized software which storing all student general information and attendance information.

Parents are also benefited from the use of this system. Notification about the location of student can be automatically sent to their parent through a mobile app. The daily attendance record is also available in the app for better and convenient tracking.

RFID reader and antenna installed at the ceiling of the entry gate.

Screen capture of Mobile App

Screen capture of web-based campus management system

Hardware for reference: Hussar Card Tag (HKRAT-CT02), Hussar Slim Tag (HKRAT-NT02), Empress EM02 ethernet reader, Empress EM02 Handheld android mobile, directional 2.4GHz antenna


For details, please contact sales@hk-rfid.com

[Product Preview] Industrial android smartphone with nRF51822 module for BT Low Power device; EM02-C5D

For industrial and construction sites, where you need a robust smartphone to read BT Low Power data, this IP65 rugged smartphone is a perfect tool. It is a standard rugged android smartphone equipped with a 2.4GHz module empowered by Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822 chipset.

This EM02-C5D belongs to Empress family, it reads all Empress-family transponder. It is also a bluetooth smart device, it reads bluetooth low power or BT4.0 above protocols from any bluetooth smart device, for example, fitbit, jawbone wristbands.

The 2.4GHz chip antenna on module works smoothly with the smartphone GPS, Wifi and 3G, providing a reading range of 40 meters (0dB transponder).

The rugged IP65 body makes it perfect for harsh industrial environment. It brings Internet of Thing (IoT) technologies to the Oil and Gas field operation (not a ATEX device), easily integrate items information (ID) with smartphone standard features like GPS location, Camera, meter sensor data, etc; and upload through 3G data network to server.

See more at Electronic Fuel Delivery System

Production code: Product code: HKRAR-EM02-C5D

Demo video of EM02-C5D, read more at active RFID reader page.

Garrison BT02 Beacon Tag supports Eddystone URL

How to push a simple URL to smartphones? That is a billion dollar question.

QRcode still remains popular even though it requires rarely-installed scan-apps. Many users might not realize that many install messaging apps like LINE or WECHAT can scan QR code too. But until the day all camera apps have scanner feature built-in, it won't take off as the most popular method.

Android Smartphone has the next-best method called NFC, which is useful to pick up URL without any APP; that leaves the lonely and helpless iPhone users.

It is a well-known fact that all street promoters who are delivering FREE ice-cream in return for loading a URL or pressing LIKE a Facebook page or installing an APP, hates iPhone very very much. It is extremely hard to push a message on iphone even with iBeacon technologies, APP-support is a luxury for a short marketing campaign. The most common method is manual key-in search words in itune store.

Now street marketing got a new better method for iphone users; by using Eddystone URL and commonly installed app "Chrome".

At the moment, Chrome is the only browser that supports Eddystone URL beacons. BUT, it won't be long for other OS or App or Browser in the same ecological system doing the same. Why not? they got to have something for their endless update, right?

For iphone users who believe they approached a Eddystone beacons broadcasting URL, and for the promoters who are broadcasting a URL, this is what will happen;

A demo for a iphone to get a URL, by just check on Notification, in Chrome section.



The beacon in the screen: HKRAT-BT02

The Setup procedure is simple:  link.

Review of NODE, a multi-sensor on your smartphone

Today we are gonna to review this gluestick-like stuff.

Its name is NODE.

If I just show you the NODE, without telling you any things about it, I can guarantee that your blind guess can never be right.

It is a Bluetooth-connectable gadget that can connect with up to 2 sensors. And there is a wide choice of sensors; a whole lot of choice for sensors. Extracting the introduction of NODE from the official, it is a handheld sensor powerhouse with BLE 4.0 Smart supporting with different sensors. Each NODE can pair with two sensors at the same time.

They have 8 functions provided at this moment

CLIMA

The upper one is the CLIMA Module, the white sphere up there act as a mini, pocket observatory. It provides the measurement and recording of climatic information include Air Pressure, Light Index, Humidity and Temperature. It just gives you a chance to be a weatherman around your friends and colleagues. I’m sure you will become a weather-checking junkie after using the CLIMA.

A live stream record of the CLIMA module

OXA – CO2 & NO2 (not shown in picture)

The lower one is the OXA – CO2 Module, those tiny holes on the surface of the sensor help you to measure and record the carbon dioxide/nitrogen dioxide level around you. It is actually quite interesting to know about how good the air quality is throughout your daily life. Isn’t it?

Luckily, it shows that my working environment is within the CO2 safety level   
       

Well, this is empty and it is not an error NO2 level should remain zero or very low in normal environment

Now, just have a short summary of NODE, as a cutting edge gadget, NODE is really easy to use even for a novice. Install the apps, turn on your NODE and you can have fun with it. I won’t say NODE is kid-and-grandma-friendly, yet…it’s aimed for student or someone who want to get a taste on mini-scale scientific investigator.

The only real problem is that NODE and their sensors remain a relative high price (for any student to own one) even though it has been released about 2 years ago. What we can do is just to hope that, in one day, NODE will move to large production runs and price will come down hopefully.

Feel free to contact us by email: info@hk-rfid.com

[Tech blog] A weekend mini-project, EM02 reader links up wearables and controller

Just a simple DIY quick project, showing how to make a home automation or access control, the EM02 reads any bluetooth low power gadgets such as Mi-wristand, or Jawbone or Fitbit, or similar.

The SD-card image can be provided upon request, it provides a website for simple configuration, save the low power gadgets's ID timestamp, in SD card, and control the relay. 

What would be the software looks like? to-be-continued in next blog, stay tune.

Bill of material:

Raspberry Pi 2nd-gen, Real time clock, Piface controller 4-relay 4 I/O, 8G Sandisk card with SDK program	1 set
Any mobilephone adapter/charger, 5V min. 2A	1pc
USB power for Pi	1pc
USB to Serial Port	1pc
USB to DC2.1 jack	1pc
Empress EM02-SP reader (serial port)	1pc
Sport wearable gadgets, or 2.4G low power transponders, Mi-wristband, Hussar NT02 transponder, jawbone UP24, Fitbit Flex, etc.	-

- where to purchase the Raspberry Pi: link
- where to purchase the Piface relay board: link

Preview on new features for EM02 latest firmware, BTLE added.

Apart from Empress series transponder such as Hussar/Garrison/Tempcorder series, now Empress EM02 readers can also gather the beacon signal from BTLE devices, especially useful for scanning IDs from wearables such as Fitbit, Jawbone, etc.

Empress EM02 is a FCC CE certified reader, has long been used as data gatherer for telemetry business applications together with Empress series transponders. With the latest upgrade, by simply switching setting by software command, it can read bluetooth device's ID, meaning the reader can now work alone in many other business applications. This reader can be used as gateway for Bluetooth smart devices (BT4.0 or above), which is popular in smartwatch, wearable, health activity recorder, mobile phone apps, etc.

BT4.0 or BTLE USB dongles are common and they can do the same, they are best for small scale development and demo test. However, this EM02 reader provides more options in project implementation, in terms of choice of extendable antenna and network connectivity.

This EM02 is also perfect for projects which requires reading proprietary devices and BTLE devices at the same time (DUAL mode), for example, reading meter readings (proprietary) and staff ID (BTLE) at the same time. See the video for live explanation.

For sales issue, please contact sales@hk-rfid.com
For support issue, please contact support@hk-rfid.com
For products, please check our website www.hk-rfid.com

Simple ibeacon demo using Garrison RT02-BT

This is a simple ibeacon demostration using Garrison RT02-BT. Here we showed the how iphone detects the 2.4GHz bluetooth low energy (with ibeacon firmwire advertising a UUID). Any android mobiles equipped with bluetooth 4.0 also works the same.

The signal RSSI received from transponder would be used for ranging BUT do not provide any hints on direction. So actually the direction appears on the screen is only for the ease of illustration purpose only.





Please also see other posts

Extended battery ibeacon tag.
Ibeacon proximity marketing

Preview the iBeacon in Industrial-grade Waterproof Enclosure and 2x Battery Life

This post provides a product preview on RR02 (tentative code, means Rugged Recorder), the iBeacon in Industrial-grade Waterproof Enclosure and parallelling-double CR123A Batteries, 3000mAH in total.

 

Features:

1. Nordic semiconductor 256k IC, nRF51822 BT4.0, bluetooth low energy BLE, iBeacon Firmware
2. IP68 waterproof enclosure
3. Replaceable CR123A x 2pcs, 3000mAH in total
4. AES security coprocessor
5. Stable performance and maintenance-free
6. Detect ON/OFF on 1 input
7. Optional Power input 12-28V 
8. +4 dB RF power, reading range up to 200m

Theoretically, how long can 2 CR123A cells last?

	Beacon Interval
	0.1s	0.2s	0.5s	1s	1.5s	2s	2.5s
Days	499.0	993.6	2452.2	4801.6	7054.5	9216.9	11294.0
Months	16.6	33.1	81.7	160.0	235.2	307.2	376.5
Years	1.4	2.8	6.8	13.3	19.6	25.6	31.4

(Bolded figures do not include the effect that may result from battery aging and leakage current)

Let us know more about your thoughts on extra features. Contact us by email : info@hk-rfid.com