september/october smartcities europe’s€¦ · based on a new survey of rfid end users, this...
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DEDICATED TO RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIF ICATION AND ITS BUSINESS APPLICATIONS
www.rfidjournal.com SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013
• VERTICAL FOCUS: CONSUMER MARKETINGThe New ‘It’ Tool For Branding Products And Services page 20
• PRODUCT DEVELOPMENTSA Guide To Embeddable RFID Metal Tags page 30
• AShTON’S VIEw Making Multisensor Data Meaningful page 41
Smart CitiesRFID And Related Technologies Help DeliverBetter Services At Less Cost PAGE 12
EUROPE’S
The RFID Marketer’s
HANDBOOKsmART sTRATegIes FoR FInDIng poTenTIAL BuyeRs
AnD conveRTIng THem InTo cusTomeRs
LeARn smART sTRATegIes FoR ReAcHIng RFID BuyeRs ToDAyORDER YOUR COPY FOR JUST $199, AND START GENERATING MORE SALES.
www.rfidjournal.com/store/rfid-marketers-handbook
Based on a new survey of RFID end users, this guide reveals:
› The state of adoption by industry and region
› Who the RFID buyer is
› How companies make RFID investment decisions
› The applications end users are pursuing
Chasm 34% 34% 16%
Innovators Early Adopters Early Majority Late Majority Laggards
POTENTIAL MARKET SIZE TODAYAlmost 85 percent of companies won’t invest
until RFID crosses the chasm
contents
features
departments
5 Editor’s NoteBeyond RFID’s core benefits.
6 Out in Front Meet PAT, Siri for the homeless;tracking hummingbirds; going,going, gone!
8 Perspective Two potential gorillas emerge;RFID, sensors and the Internet of Things.
EDITORIAL
Mark Roberti, [email protected]
Andrea Linne, Executive Editor/[email protected]
Paul Prince, Executive Editor/[email protected]
John Hull, Art Director [email protected]
Rich Handley, Managing [email protected]
Beth Bacheldor, Senior [email protected]
Mary Catherine O’ConnorSenior [email protected]
Claire Swedberg, Senior [email protected]
Edson Perin, Brasil [email protected]
John EdwardsContributing [email protected]
Rhea Wessel Contributing Writer/[email protected]
Jennifer ZainoContributing Writer [email protected]
RFID JOURNAL EVENTS
Kimberly A. Ray, VP of [email protected]
Cheryl JohnsonDirector of Events [email protected]
Debbie Hughes Editorial Director of [email protected]
Deborah LambertAdministrative Assistant of [email protected]
SALES
Alan McIntosh, Director of [email protected]
Matt Singer, Director of [email protected]
SUBSCRIPTIONS
ARTICLE REPRINTS
RFID JOURNAL LLC
Editorial office:PO Box 5874Hauppauge, NY 11788
Mark Roberti, Chief Executive [email protected]
Kathleen Knocker, Business Manager [email protected]
Sonja Valenta, Director of [email protected]
Kathy Roach, Marketing [email protected]
Lydia Sum, Administrative [email protected]
Contents © 2013 RFID Journal LLC
Vol. 10, No. 5 Sept./Oct. 2013
columns
37 Software SavvyEPCIS for internal projects. By Ken Traub
38 Tuned InRFID enables the trend toward consumer-driven showroom shopping. By Bill Hardgrave
41 Ashton’s View Making more sense. By Kevin Ashton
C O V E R S T O R Y
12 The Future Is Now for Smart Cities Municipalities across Europe are tapping into RFID and related technologies to deliver new andenhanced services. By John Edwards
V E R T I C A L F O C U S
20 The New ‘It’ Tool for Branding Products and Services Companies are turning to RFID toengage consumers via social mediaand interactive ads and promotions.By Jennifer Zaino
P R O D U C T D E V E L O P M E N T S
28 A Guide to Embeddable RFID Metal Tags These solutions are designed to monitor hard-to-track and high-valuemetal assets, such as handheld tools,industrial parts and surgical equipment. By Bob Violino
COVER ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCK
RFID Journal • September/October 20132
tune in onlineMost-Read Stories in September
• NFC Brings Real-Time Audio Commentary to America’s Cup Spectators
• Saks’ RFID Deployment EnsuresThousands of Shoes Are on Display
• Intel’s Gen 4 vPro Computer Processors Feature AeroScout Wi-FiRTLS Technology
• Canadian Startup Offers InteractiveDigital Signage System
• Aerospace Company Tests RFID Solution for Tracking Cell Phones
Top 10 Search TermsOn RFIDJournal.com
1 NFC
2 Saks
3 Asset management
4 Security
5 Health care
6 American Apparel
7 RTLS
8 Cold chain
9 Sensors
10 Cost
www.rfidjournal.com
The Inside Scoop
What are end users sayingbehind the scenes? Whyshould the RFID communitybe optimistic about the industry? Who’s spreadingmisinformation? Get insightand perspective at the RFID Journal Blog.
Ideas Exchange
RFID Journal maintains an Ask the Experts forum,where you can submit questions about RFIDtechnology and its applications. Your questionswill be answered by RFIDJournal editors or outsideexperts. Recent questions include:
• Has RFID been integratedwith GPS?
• Are any manufacturersusing RFID to track 3,000to 12,000 items daily?
• What is the most importantcomparison between RFIDand bar codes?
• Are there any UHF solu-tions for elevators?
• What’s new with RFID forlibraries?
“
“
What’s new at RFIDJournal.comRFID providers now have a new source to find companiesworldwide that are actively seeking to deploy RFID. Eachday, RFID Requests for Proposals is updated with newRFPs from companies in diverse industries. Each RFP in-cludes detailed information, contacts and submissiondeadlines.
Coming soon to RFIDJournal.comThese live interactive programs offer a con venient way to learn why and howcompanies are employing RFID to improvethe way they do business. Presenters willanswer your individual questions.
• RFID for Warehouse and Inventory Management: Nov. 14• RFID in Harsh Environments: Nov. 19• Using NFC to Deliver, Share and Collect Data: Jan. 28
Find products that can helpyou deploy RFID successfully.
Here’s an example: InfoChip’s Bluetooth Easy Readercan scan the unique chip ID of most HF tags into any appli-cation on almost any Bluetooth-enabled device, includingiPads, iPhones, Androids, tablets, smartphones, PCs andhandhelds.
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will soon be possibleat the push of
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POLL RESULTS
Cast your vote.Each week, RFID Journal takes the pulse of theRFID community. See what other people arethinking—and make your opinion count.
YES,
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D IS ADVANCING RAPIDLY
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BY ATTENDING THIS EVENT, YOU WILL:
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5RFID Journal • September/October 2013
editor’s note
I’ve always belIeved that radio frequencyidentification would deliver more than just efficient supply chains. From the day we beganpublishing RFID Journal in 2002, it was clearto me that consumers, nonprofits, governmentmunicipalities and other organizations wouldbenefit from the technology’s tremendous
power. But I have to admit,I didn’t imagine that RFIDwould facilitate garbagecollection, enable bicyclerental programs or help thehomeless (see “Meet PAT,Siri for the Homeless” onpage 6).
Near-Field Communica-tion technology hadn’tbeen developed back then,and “social media” didn’texist. So using RFID tobrand products and serv-ices wasn’t on my radar.Yet, consumer marketing isthe topic of this issue’s Ver-tical Focus (page 20). Hell-mann’s Mayonnaise, Lexusand Vail Resorts are among
the companies using RFID (and NFC in partic-ular) to engage customers and create buzz.
And we weren’t that “smart” in 2002. I didn’tforesee the “smart city” movement that is gaining a foothold in Europe. As John Edwardsreports in our cover story (page 12), governmentmunicipalities across the continent are usingRFID and other cutting-edge technologies to deliver new and enhanced services to the people they serve. Generally speaking, the goalis to make city living easier and cities greener.
Santander, Spain, for example, has deployeda wide array of sensors (not all of them RFID)under roadbeds, mounted on street lamps andaffixed to municipal buses to continuouslymonitor the city’s vital signs. These devices
track air quality, traffic and beach conditions,tell people when the next bus will arrive at aspecific stop and manage streetlights and parksirrigation.
The European Commission is promotingsmart-metering projects, to provide a more effi-cient way of supplying energy, keeping bothutilities and customers informed about energyusage and allowing residents to save money.One application, being deployed in Helsinki,Finland’s new Kalasatama area, will create asmart electricity grid that enables residents andbusinesses to coordinate energy use with theavailability of local wind- and solar-generatedpower.
I’ve always been an art lover and tend to hitthe Tate when in London or the Rijksmuseumwhen in Amsterdam. So I particularly like theNFC application recently introduced by Nice,France, to help visitors to its modern art museum learn more about the objects they’reviewing. Nice, considered a smart-city pioneer,also deployed NFC tags on monuments aroundthe city, to help tourists discover its treasures.In 2009, the city introduced an RFID-enabledself-service bike rental program. Now, Nice isworking with Cisco on a technology-drivenproject to enhance services for residents calledConnected Boulevard.
Clearly, it takes vision to plan and identifyfunding for smart-city initiatives. (There are opportunities for RFID providers to partner onsmart-city projects.) But governments don’thave to imagine the benefits—just visit a smartcity and talk to the residents and local businessowners. Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing allthe RFID innovations still to come.
Beyond RFID’s Core Benefits
Mark Roberti, Founder and EditorPH
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out in front
Most hoMeless peopledon’t have iPhones and can’task Siri to remind themabout upcoming appoint-ments with doctors, socialworkers or housing agen-cies. They don’t carry lap-tops with Outlook, so theyoften miss critical meetingsthat could help improve thequality of their lives. Now, agroup of researchers thathave come together underthe name Patchworks hasdeveloped a radio frequencyidentification-based systemto remind the indigent whenthey have appointments. The Patchworks project is
the brainchild of Rod Dillon,a medical biologist atLancaster University, in theUnited Kingdom. It includesSignpost, a charity focused on helping the homeless, andMadLab, a group of innovators who share and experimentwith inexpensive open-source technology. The idea was tobring together researchers with those working in local communities to find ways to use cheap technology to makepeople’s lives better.The Patchworks team, with funding from the Engineering
and Physical Sciences Research Council via the U.K. CatalystHub research project, developed a prototype for “PAT,” orPersonal Appointment Ticketing service. It’s intended toenable homeless people living transient lives to track theirappointments with the swipe of an RFID-enabled wristbandor card. The PAT device then prints out a personalizedreminder list of appointment dates, times and places.The team developed a shoebox-size device that contains a
Raspberry Pi low-cost computer, an RFID reader and a smallprinter, similar to that in an electronic cash register. Thereader and printer are connected to the computer via a USBhub, and the entire device can be battery-powered.
The concept is that eachhomeless person wouldreceive a wristband or cardwith an RFID transponderstoring a unique ID. The IDwould be linked to the indi-vidual only in a Signpostcaseworker’s database. Nopersonally identifiableinformation would be storedon the chip, for security andprivacy reasons. The idea is to position a
number of PAT devices in a city or town that are acces-sible 24/7. When a userbrings his or her RFID-enabled wristband or cardclose to the PAT device, thereader would interrogate thetag, and then the computerwould connect via a Wi-Fi,cellular or wired network to a
Signpost server and retrieve appointments for that user. PATwould then print a ticket detailing the person’s appointments.“We looked into biometric ways of identifying people, but
RFID was a quick and low-cost way of creating the proto-type,” says Will Simm, a senior research associate atLancaster University. “Plus, we had the aim of minimizingthe cost of deployment of PAT boxes, and RFID matched thisrequirement.” If the low-cost chip is lost, another can beissued easily. Now that Patchworks has developed a prototype, the proj-
ect is being continued by a consortium of agencies that hasattracted funding for a broader public-information project.“Those agencies plan to integrate PAT into their larger project,” Simm says. “And other agencies in the UnitedKingdom have shown keen interest in the PAT device as apublic-information service, allowing those not connected tothe Internet or not carrying a smartphone to access personalized information in a form they can carry andupdate easily.” —Mark Roberti
RFID Journal • September/October 20136
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Meet PAT, Siri for the HomelessResearchers design an RFID system to remind homeless people about appointments with doctors, housing agencies and others.
Researcher Will Simm, pictured with an RFID wristband and PAT prototype,says the project is being continued by a consortium of agencies.
7RFID Journal • September/October 2013
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Going,Going,Gone!Square miles of matureforest covering theplanet in 1947:
5.9 millionSquare miles of matureforest covering theplanet in 2012:
3 millionHectares of forest lostannually in Brazil:
3.5 millionHectares of forest lostannually in Indonesia:
1.5 millionHectares of forest lostannually in the RussianFederation:
532,000Hectares of forest lostannually in the UnitedStates:
215,200
—Rich Handley
ecologists are increasingly concernedthat deforestation and development are dis-rupting the habitats and movements of thebirds and insects we depend on to pollinateplants for our food supply. But studying polli-nation isn’t easy. It’s hard to track insects,which are small and often don’t live long. It’s also hard to track hummingbirds,
which play an important role in pollinating avariety of tropical and temperate plantspecies. But Adam Hadley, a postdoctoralresearcher in the Department of ForestEcosystems and Society at Oregon StateUniversity, and his team are doing just that,thanks to radio frequency identification.“Habitat loss affects many pollinators, includ-ing birds,” Hadley says. “With hummingbirds,we get a better idea of how deforestationaffects their movements.” Hadley and his team initially employed
small radio transmitters, similar to those usedto track migrating deer, elk and other largeanimals. They shaved a few feathers off thetiny birds and glued a transmitter to eachbird’s back. But this required the team to follow the birds with radio receivers.Moreover, the transmitters often fell off thebirds’ backs, and the batteries died afterroughly two weeks.A member of the team had heard about
RFID transponders that could be implanted inanimals. The team purchased glass-encapsu-lated 134 kHz transponders just 8 millimeterslong and weighing only 0.033 grams, fromWest Fork Environmental, an Olympia, Wash.,company that offers research products andservices. The transponders have a read range of just
10 centimeters, which makes it impossible totrack the birds in real time. Hummingbirdsvary in length from 8 centimeters to 15 cen-timetes, depending on the species, so theresearchers had to observe them at an aviaryto determine the best placement of antennasto capture data consistently without affectinghow the birds hover around flowers. Theylearned they had to place the antennas like“halos” over flowers so the antennas would beperpendicular to the transponders when thebirds visited. Small birds must be able tohover within the antennas while feeding; oth-erwise, transponders on long-billed specieswill be too far away to be read. One big advantage of RFID over radio
telemetry systems is that readers can beplaced permanently in flower patches fre-quented by hummingbirds, so the birds canbe tracked as they return to the same feedingspots year after year. In addition, with RFID,the birds only need to be captured once toimplant the tags, rather than repeatedly toaffix new devices to their backs.So far, roughly 300 birds have been
implanted with the tiny RFID transponders,which has enabled the researchers to collect awealth of data in Costa Rica, where the studyis taking place. “We are still analyzing all thedata,” Hadley says. But it’s clear that it willprovide some meaningful insights into thefeeding habits of the hummingbirds and theimpact that deforestation has on thosehabits.” —M.R.P
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The antennas are placed like “halos” over flowers so theyare perpendicular to the transponders when the birdsvisit.
E N V I R O N M E N T
Tracking HummingbirdsResearchers are using RFID to learn how deforestation affects pollination.
T H E S T O R Y B E H I N D T H E N E W Sperspective
last month, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)approved—after more than nine months of deliberation—Honeywell International’s $600 million acquisition ofIntermec Technologies, a provider of bar-code scanners andradio frequency identification readers. The FTC’s one stipu-lation was that Honeywell would have to license its patentsrelated to scanning two-dimensional bar codes to Datalogic,an Italian bar-code technology provider, for 12 years. TheFTC said licensing the patents would enable Datalogic toenter the U.S. market and “restore the competition lost dueto the merger.”
The acquisition of Intermec sets Honeywell up as theonly serious rival to Motorola Solutions in the automatic-identification market. For the past seven years, Honeywelland Motorola have been gobbling up smaller auto-ID com-panies, which have made some acquisitions of their own.
Honeywell is a $37 billion conglomerate, based inMorristown, N.J. The company got its start in 1885 with the invention of the damper flapper, a thermostat for coal furnaces. Today, Honeywell is best known for its home ther-mostats, but it also has aerospace and defense, automotive,construction and maintenance, energy, health care, indus-
Consolidation has left Honeywell and Motorola Solutions the twodominant players in the automatic-identification market.
Two Potential GorillasEmerge
RFID Journal • September/October 20138
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9RFID Journal • September/October 2013
trial process control, and safety and securitydivisions. Intermec will become part of theHoneywell Scanning & Mobility division, andit will likely take six months to a year to complete the integration.
Honeywell jumped into the market for bar-code scanners in 2007, when it acquired Hand Held Products. A year later, it acquiredMetrologic Instruments, a supplier of data-capture hardware, for $720 million. At thetime, Metrologic had $240 million in sales,but the two acquisitions set Honeywell up asa legitimate rival to Motorola. In 2011,Honeywell purchased EMS Technologies for$491 million. EMS offered wireless solutionsfor mobile networking, rugged mobile com-puters and satellite communications. It alsohad an RFID business and owned LXE, whichmade vehicle-mounted terminals and passiveultrahigh-frequency RFID readers.
Intermec made a few of its own acquisi-tions. In 1997, it purchased Norand andUnited Barcode Industries. That year, it alsoacquired passive UHF RFID patents from IBM.And a year later, Intermec acquired AmtechCorporation’s high-frequency RFID business,Amtech Transportation Systems.
In 2007, Motorola acquired SymbolTechnologies, one of the largest providers ofbar-code scanners and RFID hardware.Symbol had purchased several bar-code andRFID companies over the years. In 2000, itacquired rival Telxon, strengthening its position in the market for handheld smartterminals that could scan bar codes. In 2004,with Walmart pushing suppliers to tag palletsand cases, Symbol purchased Matrics, a smallmaker of RFID tags and readers, for $230 mil-lion, giving it a foothold in the nascent RFIDmarket.
Last year, Motorola increased its influencein the mobile RFID reader market by purchas-ing Psion for $200 million. In 2000, Psion, a
London-based maker of smart terminals,bought Teklogix, a Canadian company thatmade rugged bar-code handheld devices.
All this consolidation leaves Honeywelland Motorola as the two biggest players in theauto-ID space. Motorola currently has thelargest market share for passive UHF RFIDreaders. Intermec has not been as aggressivein the market during the past three years as itwas in the early days of the Walmart initiative.
For both companies, bar codes still repre-sent the largest portion of their auto-ID busi-ness. With companies still replacing linearbar-code scanners and introducing some 2-Dbar-code scanners, that is unlikely to change.But as the RFID market picks up, it is likelythese two giants will ramp up their efforts andgo head to head for many of the largest deals.
The competition between two dominantplayers could be good for end users and forRFID adoption in general. Competition leads tocompetitive pricing, and both companies havethe resources to invest in new, more advancedRFID products. But it remains to be seenwhether Honeywell or Motorola will invest inthe RFID market, where sales are a tiny fractionof the overall auto-ID business. If both do,there could be quite a battle for supremacy, and one could emerge the “gorilla”—authorGeoffrey Moore’s term for the dominant technology supplier in a market—in the RFIDsector. Moore says a gorilla is necessary for thetechnology to achieve mass adoption.
If only one company invests in RFID, thatcompany will likely be richly rewarded. Agorilla typically gets more than 50 percent ofthe market for technologies that reach massadoption. If neither Honeywell nor Motorolafocus on their RFID divisions, that could openthe door for a smaller reader manufacturer,such as Impinj in the United States or CAENRFID in Europe, to achieve gorilla status. Staytuned. —Mark Roberti
Thecompetitionbetween twodominant playerscould be good forend users and forRFID adoption ingeneral.Competition leadsto competitivepricing, and bothcompanies havethe resources toinvest in new,more advancedRFID products.
perspective
pity the poor businessperson. He or she is interested intaking advantage of new technologies that enable a companyto monitor the location or condition of assets in real time.But technology providers, users and the media throw aboutso many terms to describe these technologies—includingradio frequency identification, sensors, mesh networks,Internet of Things devices and the industrial Internet—howdoes anyone begin researching possible solutions?
Articles in the mainstream press often conflate all theseconcepts. Writers sometimes refer to RFID transponders as“sensors” or “wireless sensors,” either to avoid the use ofradio frequency identification, which seems like jargon toeditors, or perhaps because they aren’t sure what the differ-ent terms actually mean.
Last November, for example, The New York Times pub-lished an article about General Electric’s efforts to gatherdata from the many items it manufactures. “Today, GE isputting sensors on everything, be it a gas turbine or a hospi-tal bed,” the article said. It included no explanation of thedifferent types of sensors. The “sensor” on the hospital bedis most likely an active RFID tag that broadcasts the identityof the object and its location. It’s not clear what GE monitorswithin its gas turbines or which technology it uses, but the
company’s Web site refers to the use of passive RFID tags forasset management.
The term “Internet of Things” was coined in 1999 by KevinAshton, then executive director of the MIT Auto-ID Center. Ithelped explain the concept of putting a low-cost RFIDtransponder on, say, a case of shampoo to enable tracking ofthe product from manufacture through sale. But some nowuse the term interchangeably with sensor networks and meshnetworks. To confuse matters more, the term has broadenedover time to include sensors inside medical equipment orphotocopiers that can report on a machine’s conditionthrough an Ethernet connection to the Internet, and almostany other technology that connects a machine to the Internet.
Whether RFID tags are sensors is open to debate. TheOxford English Dictionary defines a sensor as “a device whichdetects or measures a physical property and records, indi-cates, or otherwise responds to it.”
A basic RFID tag detects the presence of an object and cantell you its identity. It could be argued that this makes anRFID tag a sensor. Ashton addresses the issue in his column“Making More Sense” on page 41. “RFID tags enable comput-ers to sense identity, and knowing what something is almostalways is a prerequisite to being able to use other sensoryinformation, such as temperature,” he says. “I consider anRFID tag a ‘sensor’ because it can detect something about thephysical world remotely and by proxy.”
But passive RFID can also be used simply as a tool forcounting objects, such as clothing items on store shelves.When used like a bar code, RFID does not seem like a sensor.
There are active RFID tags with on-board sensors that candetect humidity, moisture, motion, pressure and tempera-ture. There are also battery-assisted and a few passive tagswith sensors. RFID is certainly part of a broader ecosystemof data-capture technologies, and the many forms of RFIDwill exist alongside and in conjunction with sensors thatmonitor environmental and other conditions.
The debate about whether RFID tags are sensors is notsimply academic. The bandying about of these termsresults in confusion among businesspeople seeking to pur-
RFID Journal • September/October 201310
T E R M I N O L O G Y
RFID, Sensors and the Internet of ThingsThe use of a wide variety of terms to describe RFID technologies—and the lack of precision amongthose terms—confuses companies seeking solutions to their business problems.
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chase solutions to solve their companies’problems. They don’t understand the varioustypes of RFID or the difference between RFIDand other technologies for monitoringmachines.
To help keep our readers informed andclear about what different technologies do,RFID Journal has adopted the followingapproach to these terms:
Basic RFID transponders, whether active orpassive, are not sensors—they are RFID tags ortransponders. Their purpose is to identify anobject and determine its location. Tags areoften used to count objects in known locations.
Wireless sensors, whether they communi-cate via mesh networks or conventional RFIDreaders, are RFID sensors—provided theyinclude an ID that allows you to differentiateone sensor from another. Some argue thatmesh-networking nodes, sometimes calledmotes, are not RFID because they have a cen-
tral processing unit and run an operating system. That’s like saying a laptop isn’t a computer because it isn’t a mainframe.
Most of our articles discuss a specific typeof technology used to identify and tracksomething. The Internet of Things is a termwe use to refer to the broad set of wired andwireless systems that enable objects andmachines to connect to the Internet and shareinformation. RFID Journal covers smartappliances that rely on RFID to collect andtransmit data (see NFC-Enabled RefrigeratorShares Data With Mobile Phones), but does notfocus on sensors built into machines to monitor their condition and report on it via awired connection to the Internet.
We believe that clarity in the use of theseterms, even if some might consider our defi-nitions arbitrary, will help companies seekingto use these technologies determine preciselywhat they need. —M.R.
cover story
RFID Journal • September/October 201312
Municipalities across Europe are tappinginto RFID and related technologies to delivernew and enhanced services.
THE FUTURE IS NOW FOR
Smart Cities
by john edwards
cover story
RFID Journal • September/October 2013 13
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The CiTy 2.0 has arrived. European planners, architects andutopians, from Leonardo da Vinci to Le Corbusier, have longproposed strategies for the development of more efficientand livable cities. Now, thanks to radio frequency identifica-tion and other cutting-edge technologies, municipalitiesacross the continent are becoming smart cities, paving theway for sophisticated citizen-oriented services that improvethe quality of life, address age-old public utility issues andenable ancient infrastructures to accommodate 21st centurylifestyles.
Santander, Spain, for example, is a hotbed of smart city ex-perimentation. An ancient port city on the nation’s Atlanticcoast, Santander is aiming for the future by reshaping itself as a prototype for smart cities worldwide. Blanketed with approximately 12,000 sensors, Santander is changing the
lives of its residents by making an array of city services interactive and convenient.
To continuously monitor the city’s vital signs, Santanderhas deployed roughly 3,000 IEEE 802.15.4 devices, 200 GPRSmodules and 2,000 joint RFID tag/QR code labels at streetlamps, facades, bus stops and other locations, as well as onboard buses and taxis. Relying on video, temperature, moisture, pressure, magnetic strength and a variety of other sensing capabilities, the devices silently monitor parkingavailability, determine air quality, observe traffic conditions,calculate when the next bus will arrive at a specific stop, and tell residents and visitors whether the surf’s up at local beaches. Santander’s sensors can alert garbage collectors tofull dumpsters, automatically dim streetlights on deserted thoroughfares and manage when parks need irrigating.
RFID Journal • September/October 201314
Project supervisor Luis Muñoz, a professor atthe University of Cantabria in Santander, is par-ticularly proud of the city’s ability to monitorparking availability electronically. Display pan-els, positioned at strategic downtown locations,show the number of available parking spots onevery street. “Whenever a car parks on top ofone of the magnetic sensors, the field changes,”Muñoz says. “The event is detected by the sensor and relayed to the data repository; the information is then displayed on the panels.”
All of the city’s sensors are linked to a central command and control center. Relevantdata is also sent to applications running onresidents’ smartphones. The apps present real-time information on bus delays, road closuresand the current pollen count. Residents can
also feed their own data into the system. Aconcerned citizen can, for example, snap a
smartphone photo of a pothole or bro-
ken streetlight to notify the local governmentthat there’s a problem that needs to be fixed.
DEFINING THE NEW METROPOLIS
As the smart cities concept gains adherents,city leaders, system suppliers and technologyanalysts are struggling to reach a definition ofthe term. “Smart cities are quite broad, cover-ing a wide variety of applications and services,and different people see things a little differ-ently in their smart-city applications,” saysHannu Penttilä, deputy mayor in charge of realestate and city planning for Helsinki, Finland,a municipality that’s well on the way to becoming a smart-city leader. “I would say thatsmart-city applications make living easier in
cities, and they are greener than older applica-tions or the old way of doing things.”
The goal of the city’s Forum Virium Hel-skinki, for example, is to develop digital services in cooperation with companies, otherpublic-sector organizations and residents. Oneproject enables passengers to access HelsinkiRegion Transport with a Near-Field Communi-cation-enabled travel card or mobile phone, aswell as post their experiences on a virtual mes-saging wall. Another project in which thetravel card doubled as a library card was sopopular that plans are now under way to makethe travel card a customer card that residentscould use to access various city services, suchas museums and swimming halls.
“A smart city is not an end state,” declaresPaul Bevan, secretary general of EuroCities, anorganization representing more than 130 European cities. “It’s more of an ambition to
use technology to make your city sustainable,more livable, more successful, and to reduce its climate footprint by innovating.” One of the organization’s 2013 priorities is smart cities, as it works toward a “common vision of a sus-tainable future in which all citizens can enjoy agood quality of life.”
It’s difficult to create a one-size-fits-all defi-nition for a smart city, because there are somany different aspects to building, creatingand running municipal services, says John Devlin, security and ID practice director for ABIResearch. Still, he gives it a try: “The basic defi-nition is the employment of new technologyand more intelligent processes to enable acleaner, quicker, smarter way of life.” Yet, Devlin adds a footnote. “It has to be available,
“A smart city is not an end state. It’s more of an ambitionto use technology to make your city sustainable, morelivable, more successful, and to reduce its climate footprintby innovating.”—paul bevan, eurocities
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it has to have scale, and it has to be largelystandardized so it can be applied to other...cities as well.”
The widespread availability of sophisticatedwireless communication, identification and location technologies is inspiring more cities toplunge into smart-city development. RFID, real-time location systems and NFC technologies canall be considered basic smart-city tools, saysMichael Liard, VP of AutoID at VDC Research.Cities are drawn to smart-city technologies forthe same reasons as private businesses—toidentify, track and manage assets (includinghuman resources), as well as to streamline
processes and improve productivity, hesays. “There’s also a desire by localitiesto enhance and provide new services,
plus there’s an ongoing requirement toimprove safety and security.”
Thanks to widespread Internet adop-
tion, European civic leaders are nowfacing a better connected and informed
populace that’s demanding improvedservices from their local governments and isn’t reflexively fearful of new technologies.“Citizens aren’t out on the streets holdingposters or picketing saying, ‘We want a smartcity,’” Liard says. “They do know, however, thatthey want more or better services.”
Increasing smartphone adoption through-out Europe is creating a more tech-savvy userbase. “The continued rise of the smartphoneis going to be important,” Liard says. “Most ofthe new smartphones that are being manu-factured outside of Apple have NFC embed-ded,” he says, “but it’s going to take time forthe population to understand how to use NFC,
to have available applications and so on.”Most cities that opt to become a smart city
do so because they view the concept as the bestapproach to solving problems that may haveexisted for years, decades or centuries, Liardsays. This is why most initial smart-city applications focus on services residents useroutinely, such as public and private trans-portation, power and water delivery and refusecollection. “I think it makes most sense toidentify where your biggest pain points areand begin there,” he says. “Build on that as thefoundation and continue to grow from there,keeping that vision of a smart city in mind.”
“Maybe the city wants to save on auto emissions, reduce street traffic and help its citizenry to get into better shape,” Devlin says.“So they introduce a bike rental program, andto make it easy for people to use the bikes, theyautomate it using RFID technology.”
The European Commission is promotingsmart-metering projects, to provide a more efficient way to supply energy, keeping bothutilities and customers informed on energyusage and allowing residents to save money.“Domestic smart meters help people knowwhen they’re using electricity and when theycan perhaps adjust their energy usage accordingly,” Bevan says. “These meters feedback information through mobile phone technology, so they never have to be read.”
Some smart applications are designed tohelp boost local economies. Nice, on theFrench Riviera, is considered a pioneer insmart cities. The city recently deployed an NFCservice to help tourists and other visitors to itsmodern art museum and other cultural sites
“You have to get some type of support and buy-in from thecitizenry and also from the retailers, the enterprises and thegovernment entities that provide services to citizens toembrace this concept... and to allocate funds toward it.”—michael liard, vdc research
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RFID Journal • September/October 2013 17
learn more about the objects they’re looking at.“The app allows access to an audio guide thatgives information about the painter and hiswork,” says Florence Barale, the Nice munici-pal councilor in charge of innovation. “More-over, lots of historical monuments areequipped with NFC technology to help thetourists to discover the treasures of Nice.”
PLANNING AND FUNDING
Identifying potential applications is the easy,no-pain part of the smart-city developmentprocess. The headaches begin when it comestime to plan and fund real-world projects. Animportant first step is winning the support ofthe local citizens and businesses that will be using—and, in many cases, funding—thesmart-city projects.
“You have to get some type of support andbuy-in from the citizenry and also from the retailers, the enterprises and the governmententities that provide services to citizens to embrace this concept... and to allocate fundstoward it,” Liard says.
The SmartSantander project was paid for by a €9 million ($11.8 million) European Uniongrant that Muñoz supervises. Muñoz notesthat winning local support was relatively easy,since a smart city stimulates a productivemodel based on knowledge and innovation.Furthermore, it creates new services that arecustomized to residents’ needs, an attributethat tends to build community enthusiasmand approval. Local businesses also like thetechnology because parking automationmakes it easier for people to shop at stores, andtraffic-management services help deliverytrucks, taxis and other types of commercial vehicles move around the city faster and moreefficiently. “Before, the services were quite flat,with no special directions for specific groupsof citizens,” Muñoz says. “Now, we can bindthe technology to citizens and serve users according to their profiles.”
Potential smart-city adopters need to pro-mote services, not technologies, Bevan says.“It’s not just about instrumenting your city andsomehow grinding all the data that comes
from millions of sensors throughout the do-main in order to change behavior or developinfrastructure that will bring solutions,” he observes. “It’s more about using technology astools that citizens can access, as well as gov-ernments and organizations.”
Smart-city technologies also appeal to peo-ple who are concerned about the environment.Most Europeans tend to be open to projectsthat promise to improve their quality of life,particularly if such ventures also lead to acleaner and healthier community, Bevan says.“In Europe, they have a very strong mindset, ata corporate, citizen and government level,around the concept of being green,” he says.
Despite persistent economic weakness, European national governments continuepouring euros into smart-city initiatives, oftenin the hope that the technology will lower thecost of providing essential services, support EUtechnology providers and maintain or enhanceservices despite rapidly aging populations.
“It’s national governments that are fundingprojects within specific cities,” Liard says.“Local government is more constrained thanever when it comes to budgets, so continuednational government involvement with, andfunding of, these types of projects is what’sgoing to continue to drive smart cities onward.”
Yet, government support for smart-city initiatives varies widely across the continent.Not surprisingly, project funding is generallyweakest among the EU’s most economicallytroubled nations, such as Greece and Ireland.Spain, despite facing significant economicchallenges, continues funding smart-city projects, Muñoz notes. “France is certainly thebeacon within Europe in terms of allocatingeuros toward the Internet of Things and creating smarter cities,” Liard says.
To speed development and reduce costs,many emerging smart cities are seeking busi-ness partnerships to share costs, as well as totap into the latest technology innovations.Meanwhile, transportation, entertainment, retail, energy and tourism-oriented organiza-tions are all beginning to see revenue potentialin smart-city applications and are looking formunicipal partners to collaborate with. “There’s
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RFID Journal • September/October 201318
a good deal of private or enterprise investment,”Devlin says. “They see an opportunity.”
“Often, a city doesn’t need some sort of stateinvestment,” Bevan says. “It’s a question ofpartnership and working in such a way thatyou are creating a market.”
“Some very big IT infrastructure and soft-ware companies see this as an opportunity forthemselves from PR and social perspectives,”Devlin says. “There’s also business opportunityas well, since they’re able to provide the ICT[information and communications technol-ogy] infrastructure.”
Nice, for example, has partnered withCisco to create “Connected Boulevard,” a system that continuously gathers data from residents via a hybrid network to generatereal-time context-aware information on traffic, parking, street lighting, waste disposaland environmental quality. “Having access to
this data is essential to enhance many serv-ices for residents,” Barale says.
As more municipalities begin exploring thepossibility of transforming themselves intosmart cities, many quickly realize that someplaces are better positioned to make a swiftand painless transition than others. Europe’sbiggest and most well-known cities, such asLondon, Paris and Berlin, may actually havemore trouble becoming smart cities than mostfar smaller communities, Bevan says.
“Bigger cities are generally strong on ideasand innovation and have the capacity and investment for change,” Bevan says. “Even so,comprehensive implementation is often easier in smaller urban settings. These offergreat pilot scenarios, living-lab style, for smart
initiatives and solutions that can be scaled upsubsequently.”
Smart-city applications are often a logicalchoice whenever a municipality launches anurban-renewal project or modernization strat-egy, with the goal of building or remaking anentire neighborhood. Helsinki, for instance, isplanning multiple smart-city applications forits new Kalasatama neighborhood. “It is a newpart of Helsinki, a totally ground-filled area,”Penttilä says. “It was an old fish harbor and nowit is being made ready for new development.”
Penttilä envisions Kalasatama as a “smartneighborhood” served by applications au-tomating multiple municipal and private services, ranging from mass transit to street repairs. “We will showcase different kinds ofsmart-city applications,” he says.
One application, being developed in part-nership with Nokia Siemens Networks and
Helsingin Energia, one of Finland’s largest energy companies, will create a smart grid thatenables Kalasatama residents and businessesto coordinate energy use with the availabilityof local wind- and solar-generated power.
“There is a strong tendency in Helsinki, aswell as in other cities in Europe and in theStates as well, for people to want to be bettercitizens,” Penttilä says. “They want more life intheir cities, a better life.” Penttilä thinks thatpeople will eventually come to expect theavailability of smart-city applications in thesame way they currently look for a city to pro-vide parks, street lighting and other essentialinfrastructure elements. “At the end of the day,”he says, “it’s people who will move the smart-city idea forward.”
People will eventually come to expect the availability ofsmart-city applications in the same way they currently lookfor a city to provide parks, street lighting and other essentialinfrastructure elements.—hannu penttilä, city of helsinki
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RFID Journal • September/October 201320
vertical focus: consumer marketing
THE NEW ‘IT’ TOOL FOR
BRANDINGBRANDING PRODUCTSAND SERVICESPRODUCTSAND SERVICES
THE NEW ‘IT’ TOOL FOR
By Jennifer Zaino
21RFID Journal • September/October 2013
Since marketing came of age asa business discipline in the early1900s, generations of consumershave found themselves the pas-sive recipients of pitches designedto communicate the value of prod-ucts and services, to encourageimmediate purchases and engen-der long-term loyalty. Companieshave built their brands andboosted their revenues with printand broadcast media, and, morerecently, e-mail and the Web.
Now, companies are taking marketing to the next level byusing radio frequency identification—in particular, Near-Field Communication technology—to make their campaignsmore personal and create experiences, at events and instores, that entice consumers into being active participants.RFID marketing efforts focus on improving brand awareness,loyalty and sales through social media and interactive adver-tisements and promotions.
Some RFID firms that provide access-control solutions nowoffer applications that enable event attendees to share theirexperiences with friends via social-networking sites (see Intellitix Links RFID and Facebook at Coachella Festival andNike Korea, Nestlé Philippines Like U-Like). The Connect & Go
system, developed by RFID Academia, was used at the 2013 Osheaga Music and Arts Festival, in Montreal. Attendees wereissued RFID bracelets to access the event, post photos on Face-book at RFID-enabled kiosks and enter contests to win prizes.
There also are startup marketing firms worldwide that spe-cialize in using RFID technologies. Blue Bite, Gauge Mobileand Proxama, for example, offer NFC systems that deliver digital media content—including ads, coupons and videopromotions—to mobile phone users within targeted geographic locations. Blondefish, dwinQ, Liquid Lemon, Mediamatic Lab and Publicis E-dologic use RFID at events toconnect attendees to their social networks. Cubocc and Pittsfield ID Technologies are among the companies that relyon RFID for in-store marketing and branding solutions.
Consumers seem to like participating in RFID-enabledmarketing campaigns—whether it’s posting photos from anactivity or event on Facebook in real time, joining a loyaltyprogram to receive on-the-spot discounts, or holding an NFC-enabled mobile phone up to a smart billboard to downloadexclusive video content about a movie being advertised.
That’s one reason Lexus, Vail Resorts and other forward-thinking companies that have employed RFID marketing cam-paigns believe they are getting a return on their investment.“When people choose to reach out and touch, your engage-ment factor is going to be higher because they have decidedthat they want something,” says Debbie Arnold, NFC Forumdirector. “And because it’s easy, they will want to do it again.”
Many of these programs also provide analytic software thatlets companies capture key performance indicators, to eval-uate the success of the campaign. Often, consumers providecontact or other personal information in exchange for RFID-enabled event passes or to enroll in loyalty programs. “Thinkof all the things you can do from an advertiser or store orP
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Companies are turning to RFIDto engage consumers via social media and interactive ads and promotions.
RFID Journal • September/October 201322
brand perspective once the user agrees to betracked,” says R “Ray” Wang, principal analystand CEO at Constellation Research. The datafrom those transactions can be used to help“figure out how to get them to buy and respond. You can market against, making iteasier to serve them what they want.”
But Gauge Mobile’s CEO Tony Vassiliev admits there’s still a bit of a guessing gamegoing on regarding the best use cases for NFCmarketing. In 2011 and 2012, Gauge Mobilepartnered with two Canadian advertising firmsto deploy NFC smart posters on universitycampuses and at transit shelters. Consumerscould use their NFC-enabled phones to tap thesmart posters to receive discount coupons,enter contests, win movie passes or purchaseproducts.
The campaigns met with mixed results.They were more successful with a younger,hipper audience, Vassiliev says, but many peo-ple were not ready for NFC. Campaigns thatrely on NFC mobile phones are limited by thefact that many consumers don’t know thetechnology is in their phones. ABI Research
reports that 125 million NFC phones wereshipped worldwide in 2012, though Apple hasnot embedded the technology in its iPhone.Still, while RFID marketing is relatively new,companies are gaining a better understandingof what does or doesn’t work, and they are de-veloping best practices (see “Consumer Mar-keting Tips From the Pros” on opposite page).
BRANDING VIA SOCIAL MEDIA One of the first companies to embrace RFIDmarketing is Vail Resorts, the leading U.S.mountain resort operator. RFID has been a partof vacationers’ experience there since the2008-09 ski season, when the company intro-duced RFID-enabled ski passes (see BenefitsUp and Down the Ski Slope). Building on theRFID infrastructure, for the 2010-11 season,Vail debuted EpicMix, social-media tools thatallow guests to track on-mountain stats, suchas days skied, lifts ridden and vertical feet ac-cumulated, and share them with family andfriends on their Facebook or Twitter accounts.
EpicMix also offers the ability to share pro-
RFID is an important part of Vail Resorts’ EpicMix social-media tools, becauseit doesn’t make the skierwork for the benefits. Guestscan track on-mountain statsand share professional photos taken on trails innear-real time.
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vertical focus: consumer marketing
23RFID Journal • September/October 2013
fessional photos of skiers taken on Vail’s trailsin near-real time. According to a Facebook casestudy, 300,000 skiers were actively usingEpicMix as of February 2012, and one-third wereactively using Facebook to share their experi-ences, creating more than two million posts toFacebook, roughly half of which were photos.“We drive a much larger social engagement andgreater brand advocacy through photos gettingposted to Facebook,” says John Lilley, senior di-rector of digital applications for Vail Resorts.
Today, guests “expect to participate withEpicMix,” Lilley says. “There’s a real loyaltycomponent to it,” he adds, in that it brings peo-
ple back to vacation with Vail. “The future ofEpicMix is to continue providing a rich guestexperience through on-mountain gamifica-tion and social-media integration,” he says.
RFID is such an important part of EpicMix,Lilley says, because it doesn’t make the skierwork for the benefits, aside from proactivelyregistering for the service. “We have gantriesaround each entrance to our lifts, and as the in-dividual passes through, we read the UHF tagin their ski pass and register the activity,” hesays. “All the data is there if the guest wants toengage with it. We’ve debated about using GPS,but with RFID you don’t have to activate your
“What we do [withRFID] is just someasurable, andthat’s whatmakes it very exciting to thebrand.”laura moody, blondefish
Consumer Marketing Tips From the Pros
Make it easy. You’ve probably built your Web site in HTML5 Responsive Web, which renders well on mobile devices and gets consumers to your Web site. But then they still have to navigate thesite to look for the application to download. Create a microsite orminisite, so consumers can simply tap an NFC tag to get an experience, such as entering a contest. —robert p. sabella, nfcbootcamp and acceleratenfc
Keep the content fresh. People enjoy the “magic” of usingNFC to get information or access experiences, but you must contin-ually refresh the content. If you don’t, the user is much less likely tore-engage with the promotion. To keep people’s attention, add somedynamic content through the cloud. —matthew bright, kovio
Understand Facebook algorithms. When you add a social-networking component to an RFID-enabled event, you wantposts to appear in users’ news feeds or timelines, not just on yourbrand page. Facebook’s proprietary algorithms connect users with
content relevant specifically to them. Usually, there’s not enoughaffinity, as Facebook rates it, or not enough engagement between abrand page and user to rate brand-page content highly. —patricksweeney, dwinq
Create a keepsake. Design the RFID-enabled access cardsyou’ll use at events for registration and activities with the sponsor’scompany logo and an image of the featured organization, such asLexus did for the U.S. Open Golf Championship. That way, thebranded card becomes a souvenir. —adrian si, lexus
Invest in resources. Whenever you implement a technologylike RFID that is tied to an infrastructure, you are getting into bedwith that technology for a long time. Don’t underestimate the num-ber of people and amount of time and expense needed to maintainthe system. At Vail Resorts, for example, there is a guest experienceconsideration to take into account if we have to replace ski passeswith worn-out RFID chips. —john lilley, vail resorts
RFID Journal • September/October 2013
phone, worry about battery life or manage aphone in harsh conditions, in the cold andwith gloves on.”
Increasingly, companies that sponsorevents—from the Olympics to car shows andgolf tournaments—are turning to RFID and so-cial media to better engage visitors and promotetheir products. Event marketers have alwaysstruggled with the fact that events have been oneof the least measurable forms of marketing, saysLaura Moody, managing director of Blondefish,which has handled projects for Adidas, Converseand Smirnoff that leveraged RFID to let guestsshare activities, videos and photos with friendson social media. “Literally, it’s a simple tap andpeople are a part of something,” she says. “It’s alittle more personal, and they love it.”
Now, the struggle is getting easier, Moodysays, thanks to RFID’s ability to track peoplearound the experience, and to use tools such asFacebook analytics to understand how users’online engagements as advocates trended interms of advocacy for the brand. On average,she reports, “for every person you connect withat an event, you reach 580 more friends online”
via Facebook or 400 via Twitter. Brand-relatedcomments and click-throughs to a Facebookpage, Web site or promotional offer also can beassessed. “What we do is just so measurable,”she says, “and that’s what makes it very excit-ing to the brand.”
During the 2012 and 2013 U.S. Open Men’s,Women’s and Senior golf tournaments, luxurycarmaker Lexus worked with dwinQ to imple-ment an RFID social-media solution. Visitorsto the Lexus Performance Drive Pavilion pro-vided their e-mail and some other personaldata to receive an RFID card they could swipeat kiosks to play interactive games and havetheir photo snapped with the U.S. Open Cham-pionship Trophy. RFID readers at each stationcollected information about the activity andphotos, which were transmitted to Facebook,Twitter or YouTube. This allowed users’ friendsand family to engage with the Lexus brand aswell, says Adrian Si, events and partnershipsmanager for Lexus. “We saw with RFID that wecould tie in to certain bits of social media,” headds. “So that gave us a built-in amplificationprocess, which was good for us from a
24
During the 2012 SummerOlympics in London, some20,000 visitors at the Cadbury House used RFIDbadges to check in, activategames and share photos.Cadbury achieved a tangible return on its investment, according to dwinQ, whichimplemented the solution.
vertical focus: consumer marketing
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recorded at various live and online events.
RFID Journal holds several face-to-face conferencesevery year, as well as a number of online virtual eventsand webinars. These events feature end users speakingobjectively about the business reasons that theydeployed an RFID system, the technical hurdles theyovercame in doing so and the benefits they nowachieve as a result, as well as presentations byacademics, vendors and other experts. Many of thesessions were recorded, and we have compiled theserecordings into seven DVDs that are available forpurchase for only $99 or free with a one-year premiummembership to RFID Journal.
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Hear presentations from RFIDJournal events, including:
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vertical focus: consumer marketing
RFID Journal • September/October 201326
branding and engagement perspective.”DwinQ worked with Cadbury on a similar
project during the 2012 Summer Olympics inLondon. Some 20,000 visitors at the CadburyHouse used RFID badges to check in, activategames and share photos. This real-time shar-ing led to 7 million earned impressions onFacebook, says Patrick Sweeney, president andCEO of dwinQ (also founder of ODIN Tech-nologies, now part of Quake Global, which deployed the RFID technology for Vail Resort’simplementation). “To get that exposure duringthe Olympics on the BBC would have cost morethan $2 million,” Sweeney says. “Cadbury paidabout a tenth of that for RFID activation. So,$200,000 for $2 million worth of value is verytangible ROI.”
INTERACTIVE ADS AND PROMOTIONS Companies and organizations are trying a variety of RFID marketing tactics to engageconsumers and turn them into customers. Ata recent concert in Miami, Post Foods passedout cereal samples and NFC-enabled cards thatpeople could tap with their phones to visit aURL containing videos, music and concert up-dates (see At Miami Concert, NFC RFID HelpsPost Foods Market Its Products). In Wiredmag-azine’s April 2012 issue, an NFC tag was embedded in a Lexus car ad. Consumers coulduse NFC-enabled phones to retrieve video andother content regarding the automotive com-pany’s latest offerings (see RFID-enabled LexusAd Debuts in Pages of Wired Magazine).
This year, California’s Sacramento Kingsbasketball team provided season ticket hold-ers with NFC loyalty cards, which could beused at designated terminals within the arenato accrue reward points. “One NFC tag did multiple things to create multiple revenuechannels,” says Matthew Bright, director oftechnical marketing at Kovio, which developsand manufactures printed silicon products forNFC markets. “It was a trading card, and thatby itself was a cool item. But it also could be adiscount card at the point of sale, and when auser tapped it with an NFC phone, he or she got
exclusive content.” That access to behind-the-scenes content connects fans with their teamand feeds their loyalty, Bright says, and moreloyal fans attend more games and buy moreteam-related items.
In May, Blue Bite and Creative Mobile Tech-nologies (CMT) announced they are workingtogether to enhance the content delivered viaCMT media screens in taxicabs. Blue Bite’smTag platform will be installed in 5,000 cabsin Anaheim, Boston, Chicago, New York,Philadelphia and San Francisco. Riders will beable to tap their NFC-enabled smartphones (oruse the QR code) to download music, videos,promotional information, coupons and maps.
A recent NFC promotion for Hellmann’sMayonnaise at a supermarket in São Paulo,Brazil, increased sales by 68 percent, accordingto Brisa Vicente, an account director at theBrazilian advertising and marketing agencyCubocc, which developed the campaign. RFIDreaders and antennas were installed on storeshelves, and shopping carts were equippedwith RFID tags and tablet computers. As shop-pers walked by, say, the vegetable section, avideo of a salad with a mayonnaise dressingwould play on the screen. A consumer coulduse the touch screen to be directed to the otheringredients in the recipe and to share therecipe with friends on social networks (see InBrazil, RFID Is an Important Ingredient to theMarketing of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise).
MARKETING RFID MARKETING SOLUTIONSWhile RFID marketing faces some challenges,industry insiders believe it will become commonplace as consumers become more familiar with their NFC phones and retailerslearn how to exploit these innovative market-ing possibilities. In the past year, Samsung hashas increased consumer understanding of NFC as a fun technology, with its Galaxy S III Android smartphone commercials that high-light users sharing videos and downloadinggoodies like music through smart posters, saysRobert P. Sabella, founder of NFC Bootcampand AccelerateNFC. “Really,” he says, “the
Access to behind-the-scenes content connectsfans with theirteam and feedstheir loyalty, andmore loyal fansattend moregames and buymore team-related items.matthew bright, kovio
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Galaxy S III changed the discussion, being thefirst real viable alternative [to the iPhone] forpeople to use with NFC in it. Now people arestarting to understand that they can tap andsomething will happen.”
The adoption of item-level tagging in storesis also opening the door to creative marketing.Retailers that adopt item-level RFID to improveinventory management can enhance the shop-ping experience for their customers, says Jill West, senior manager of marketing com-munications at RFID vendor Impinj. ConsiderPatrizia Pepe, an Italian fashion designer thathas tagged all its product items—some two mil-lion of them—to improve warehouse opera-tions and logistics. The company installedvideo “totems” at retail locations in Florenceand Rome. As a shopper passes by with a taggeditem, the totem displays product information,such as details about a garment’s construction,videos of models wearing the clothes and ad-vice on coordinating items (see Patrizia PepeBrings Efficiency to Its Supply Chain).
If supermarket retailers don’t want to payfor RFID technology, consumer packagedgoods companies likely will, says MichaelLiard, VP of AutoID at VDC Research. He pointsto an active RFID solution, developed by ZebraTechnology in partnership with VisibleBrands,that offers targeted promotions to shopperswho enroll in loyalty programs. “They knowSuzy Shopper is there, what she likes becauseshe is a loyal customer, and now it’s possible topush a real-time dynamic market message toher” as well as maybe a coupon to her smart-phone for the advertised product, Liard says.
The catch, Liard says, is that the solutionuses ultrawide-band technology, the most ex-pensive real-time location system option. But,he adds, “CPG companies can learn what res-onates with Suzy and what would be morelikely to get her to spend in the store, espe-cially as the system gets smarter over time.Promotions management and their successmeasurement are often referred to as the‘black hole’ of retail, but with something likethis you’ll know in real time that an offer orpromotion is not resonating with any, most orindividual customers.”
Meanwhile, companies from Nissan Europeto Sunglass Hut in South Africa are embracingRFID-enabled social media. The connectionbetween social media and events isn’t a fadthat will fade, dwinQ’s Sweeney says. “Con-necting events to social media is a new func-tionality that’s going to be required of everyevent going forward,” he says.
“You can find out where users went andwhat they did, which amplification or activa-tion sites were the most engaging, so there’simmediate data back on engagement both on-site and on Facebook to know where to spendmoney, where investments worked,” Sweeneysays. Data mining, especially with a good social media operating system, lets marketersgo deep into Facebook and Twitter to pull backinformation about user age, geography, educa-tion level and relationship status, and that, hesays, is “all-important information marketerslove and CMOs [chief marketing officers] aredemanding.”
The adoption ofitem-level tagging in storesopens the doorto creative marketing. Patrizia Pepe, for example, installed video “totems” toenhance theshopping experience.
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RFID METAL TAGSRFID METAL TAGS
RFID Journal • September/October 201330
IT’S A WELL-KNOWN FACT that metal causes two majorproblems for radio frequency identification transponders: Itcan reflect energy away from a tag, and it can detune a tag antenna, preventing it from receiving energy from a reader.
Several years ago, RFID providers met the physics challenge:They developed “on-metal” tags, now available in a wide vari-ety of sizes and frequencies, that enable companies in myriadindustries to track metal assets and to use RFID in warehousesand other environments that contain metal fixtures. Many on-metal tags are designed to withstand harsh environments,so companies in the construction, energy and manufacturingsectors can use RFID to track parts, pipes, tools and other
equipment (see Rough Riders: RFID Tags Get Rugged).Still, there are some applications for which on-metal tags
don’t work optimally, because the asset is too small, condi-tions are too harsh or the tag interferes with use of the asset.So RFID providers developed tags that can be embedded inmetal items. These solutions are designed to track a varietyof assets, including surgical equipment, handheld tools,weapons, metal utility poles, heavy machinery exposed to extreme heat and vibration, iron beams, oil and gas pipes,and valves, agricultural equipment and industrial bolts forautomotive assembly.
“On-surface solutions are generally considered first,” says
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product developments
These solutions are designedto monitor hard-to-track and high-value
metal assets, such as handheld tools, industrialparts and surgical equipment.
BY BOB VIOLINO
EMBEDDABLEEMBEDDABLEA GUIDE TOA GUIDE TO
31RFID Journal • September/October 2013
Patrick King, founder of tag provider Technolo-gies ROI (TROI). But, he adds, on-metal tagscan be vulnerable to certain environmentalconditions. “Some companies may want to ensure mechanical, chemical or heat integrity,which adds life to the solution,” he says. Em-bedding the tag prevents it from being hit orexposed to unusual chemical procedures, as inthe case of paint lines and metal foundries.
In addition, the use of on-metal tags can affect the design of finished products. “Whenyou design any product and assuming you take
pride in your work, you will always make an efficient design with no waste and meeting allspecifications,” King says. “If someone thencomes to you and suggests either adding to thedesign or removing something to replace itwith a tag, then likely the proposal violatesyour design intent and may even put the designat risk for quality or cosmetics.”
The solution, King says, is to make the tagan integral part of the product, and have thedesign engineer “envision a total solution andnot one modified after fabrication. This is the
TROI’s UHF FX-1tag is embeddedin a 4-inch pipeend cap. The solution enablesa company tokeep track of theassets it rents tooil and gas firms.
product developments
RFID Journal • September/October 201332
real goal and the likely outcome needed inorder to have the embedded tag market take offand grow significantly.”
Embedded tags are ideal for tracking ITequipment and other high-value assets, saysTracy Gay, VP of marketing at Omni-ID. In addition, Gay says, the company’s tags arecommonly embedded in tools used in indus-trial manufacturing or aerospace industries.They are “especially critical” in aerospace,where they enable technicians to “easily scanplanes after maintenance to ensure that notools are left behind,” she notes.
Another benefit is that embedded tags canprovide security for high-value assets, saysRichard Aufreiter, director of product manage-ment for identification technologies at HIDGlobal. “The RFID component is fully protectedfrom the environment,” he says. “The tag is notvisible and cannot be removed—as long as it isembedded into the asset itself, instead of simply being a tag with metallic housing.”
Embedding tags in assets is more expensivethan attaching on-metal options. But, Kingsays, manufacturers need to consider the long-term benefits. “If a tag is incorporated into the raw material, that allows for automatedtracking of the entire work-in-process, so thecost of embedding plummets.”
Here’s what else you need to know to deter-mine whether an embedded tag solutionmight be right for your company. For more details, see the vendor table on opposite page.
EMBEDDING THE TAGMetal assets can be retrofitted with embeddedRFID tags or the tags can be embedded duringmanufacturing. Retrofitting involves drilling acavity into the asset, placing the tag inside,then covering it with a metal plate that is typ-ically screwed or snapped in, or backfilling thedepression with resin. TROI’s FX-1 tag is asmall round plug with a magnetic base thatcan be pressed into a fitted hole or secured by
Omni-ID’s UHFFit 210 tag can beembedded insmall hand tools
33RFID Journal • September/October 2013
the magnet to the metal in a larger recess.(TROI tags are available from William Frick andother RFID providers.)
Generally, it costs more to add an embeddedtag aftermarket. “The lowest cost is when thepart to be tagged had the recess [for the tag]prepared in production,” TROI’s King says. “Inthis scenario, the tag can even be added duringfabrication, including by automation, at a re-duced cost.”
“Several OEMs [original equipment manu-facturers] currently include RFID in the man-ufacturing of their products,” says SandersRoth, director of Holland 1916’s RFID division.
“But most OEMs retrofit the tag into the assetbased upon customer requests.”
Xerafy provides a user guide for its family of“iN” tags. “We have had customers who retrofittheir existing assets [such as gas valves andmeat hooks], and there are already tools on themarket from manufacturers like Stanley Black& Decker that are manufactured with RFID tagsalready in place,” says Xerafy CEO Dennis Khoo.
CHOOSING AN EMBEDDED TAGEmbedded tags come in a variety of shapes andsizes, and frequencies and read ranges, whichdetermine how the tags can be embedded into
Some Leading Providers of Embeddable RFID Metal Tags
COMPANY PRODUCTS TAG SIZE (mm) FREQUENCIES/READ RANGE INDUSTRIES APPLICATIONS
HID Global hidglobal.com
Glass tags, e-Module, Piccolino, InLine Tag Ultra,IronTag
• 1.4 x 8 • 4 x 22• 12.4 x 2• 20 x 2.5
LF, HF, UHF;read rangesfrom 1 inch to26 feet
Health care,manufacturing,utilities
Factory automation; trackinggas bottles, medicalequipment, parts, tools andutility lines
Holland 1916 RFID Divisionholland1916.com
Mtag 13, Data Wedge
• 6 to 25• 6 x 4• 13 x 4
HF; 1 foot Aerospace,automotive,construction, mining,oil and gas
Tracking parts and tools,inspection and compliance,maintenance and fieldservice
Omni-ID omni-id.com
Fit 200,Fit 210,Fit 400
• 8.6 x 6.1 x 2.6• 56.5 x 5.0 x 1.3• 13.1 x 7.1 x 3.1
UHF; readranges from 4feet to 13 feet
Aerospace, healthcare; industrialmanufacturing
Tracking hand and powertools, IT assets and medicaldevices
Technologies ROI troirfid.com
CC-71, FT-1002,FX-1, OK-106,PC-106, STI-1,STI-2, WoW-1F
• 12 x 7• 36 x 10• 140 x 4 x 2• 56 x 25 x13
UHF; readranges from 12inches to 10 feet
Aerospace,automotive,construction, healthcare, oil and gas
Factory automation; trackingreturnable containers, leasedor returnable assets (pipes,tools) and surgicalinstruments
Xerafyxerafy.com
Dash-iN XS, Dot-iN XS, Micro-iN, Nano-iN, Pico-iN, Pico-iN Plus
• 12.3 x 3 x 2.2• 06 x .5• 30 x 30 x 3• 25 x 9 x 3• 12 x 7 x 3
UHF; readranges from 3feet to 20 feet
Aerospace, automotivemanufacturing,constuction, healthcare
Tracking IT assets, tools formaintenance, repair andoverhaul, surgicalinstruments, weapons
product developments
RFID Journal • September/October 201334
metal and what functions they provide.“Low-frequency technology is suitable for
embedding a tag into a full metallic housingwith no opening,” HID Global’s Aufreiter says.“High-frequency technology requires that therebe a small opening in the metal to power theantenna, which makes it suitable for use withNFC [Near-Field Communication] handsets,adding value to the overall solution. Ultrahigh-frequency is not suitable for embedding into
metal without a large opening [the full antennamust be exposed].”
HID Global offers products in each of thesecategories. Its LF solutions include a Glass tagthat can be embedded in metal for use in inven-tory tracking, warranty validation and other automation and manufacturing applications.The e-Module and Piccolino HF tags can beused for tool maintenance and utility line applications. Its UHF tags include the InLineTag Ultra, for tracking vehicles, pallets, ship-ping containers, gas cylinders, and commercialand industrial bins, and the IronTag, designedfor tracking machinery, metal tools and indus-trial components in harsh environments.
Holland developed its own HF chip, andworks with Xerafy, Tagsys and other partnersto provide UHF components. “We are a metalfabrication shop so we have the ability to makeany shape the customer needs,” Roth says.
Omni-ID offers the Fit 200, a very small,passive UHF tag suited for tracking hand tools
To embed Holland RFID’sHF Data Wedgetag, a companycan drill a hole in a metal assetand push the tag into it.
HID Global’s LFGlass tags can beembedded inmetallic assets,such as tools andengine parts.
product developments
35RFID Journal • September/October 2013
and medical devices. It has a read range ofroughly 8 feet with a fixed reader and 4 feetwith a handheld. The Fit 210 is a bar-shapedtag the company says works well for trackinghand and power tools.
The Omni-ID tags are all embeddable, but require varying levels of custom tuning de-pending on the application, says Tony Kington,managing director and executive VP of sales,Europe and EMEA. “There is not an off-the-shelf solution, because there are a number ofvariables when you embed a tag that can affectperformance,” such as the size of the recess intowhich the tag is being embedded, he says.
Xerafy offers “the smallest UHF RFID tagson the market,” Khoo says. Its Dash-iN XS andDot-iN XS are designed to track small tools andsurgical instruments. “The tags are also de-signed to comply with medical standards andput to the test to ensure they survive repeatedautoclave cycles,” he says. For applications thatrequire a long read range, such as tracking
metal assets at construction sites and duringautomobile manufacturing, Xerafy offers theMicro-iN tag, which has a 20-foot read range.
RFID providers admit that the market forembedded tags is small. But they believe therewill be a growing demand for such tags asmore effective ways of embedding becomeavailable and more companies begin trackingmetal items through the supply chain.
TROI, for example, has developed a propri-etary embedding method in which the metalpart being tagged actually becomes the tag. Thisenables significant cost savings and improvedmechanical and chemical performance, Kingsays. The company also has a patent-pendingdesign for a tag that can be screwed into athreaded hole. This tag can withstand extremetemperatures and pressure, he says.
“As the size of embedded tags continues toshrink… and more manufacturers begin to tagat the source,” Xerafy’s Khoo says, “this marketwill continue to grow.”
Xerafy’s UHFDash-iN XS andDot-iN XS tagsare designed to comply with medical standards andsurvive repeatedsterilizations.
Choosing the proper radio frequency identification systemfor your application can be a daunting task. Now, for the firsttime, RFID Journal provides a guide to choosing the right system for your needs, and explains the pros and cons ofdifferent RFID solutions for different applications.
How to Choosethe Right RFID Technologyfor Your Application
Save yourself hundreds of hours of research timewith this new guide for just $395, or only $199 witha new membership to RFID Journal.
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37RFID Journal • September/October 2013
ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCKPHOTO
software savvy
GS1’S ElEctronic ProductCode Information Services(EPCIS) standard is knownprimarily for its ability toenable trading partners tosecurely exchange infor-mation regarding the loca-tion of products in the supply chain. Less known
is that EPCIS was also designed to let differentbusiness units within a company share infor-mation. Few companies take advantage of thisaspect of the standard, but they should. Ithelps structure RFID data so the data can beused for many business purposes.
To illustrate how this works, imagine amotorcycle manufacturer that uses specialracks to move unfinished motorcyclesthrough the steps of assembly, painting, cus-tomization, testing and inventory prior tofinal shipment. The company decides toRFID-tag the racks to track them through themanufacturing process.
The plant manager uses the RFID data tomonitor work-in-process, meet throughputtargets and identify trouble spots. The proper-ty manager, who works in a different depart-ment, views the racks as a valuable asset anduses the RFID data to ensure the company hasan adequate supply at initial assembly, as wellas to track the repair of damaged racks anddetermine when to order replacements. In yet another department, the customer-relationship manager uses the RFID data toassociate specific racks with custom orders,to keep clients informed about when theirmotorcycles will be ready for delivery.
The same RFID data can enable at leastthree business applications—but only if theraw tag reads are captured in a way that antici-pates multiple uses. A typical deploymentwould tailor the RFID infrastructure to the first
business application, which would make itdifficult to support a second application without reworking the capture software, disrupting the first application in the process.It gets worse with each new application. The problem is that raw tag reads lack the context of where and why the tag was read, soeach application must make assumptionsregarding how the data relatesto the business process.
EPCIS solves this problemby providing a standard datamodel that all current—andfuture—applications can use.The data-capture hardwareand software in the plant con-verts tag reads into EPCISevents, based on the EPCISstandard data model of“what,” “when,” “where” and“why.” The “where” and “why”are what differentiate EPCISevents from raw RFID tagreads. The “where” dimensionincludes detailed locationinformation, which the plantand asset managers need fortheir applications. The “why”dimension indicates what process step isbeing carried out, which the plant and cus-tomer managers need, but is less important tothe asset manager. The “why” dimension alsocontains links to client orders, critical infor-mation for the customer manager.
In my next column, I’ll explain the nutsand bolts of implementing EPCIS software.
Ken Traub is the founder of Ken Traub Consulting,a Mass.-based firm providing services tocompanies that rely on advanced softwaretechnology to run their businesses. Send yoursoftware questions to [email protected].
EPCIS for Internal ProjectsThe standard for sharing information can maximize the valueof your RFID hardware investment.By Ken Traub
RFID Journal • September/October 201338
ILLU
STRATION: ISTOCKPHOTO
According to severAlretail industry experts, we are well on our way to “Retail 3.0”—a trendcharacterized as a powershift from the retailer to the individual con-sumer. Instead of retailersdeciding what brands anditems to carry in which
stores and at what cost, consumers are usingthe Internet and mobile devices to find thecheapest place to buy what they want, whenthey want it. Omnichannel retail is the industry’s attempt to capitalize on—andmaintain a grasp on—consumer power. As Idiscussed in my Omnichannel Retailing col-umn, RFID, which delivers real-time accurateinventory data efficiently and cost-effectively,is essential to successfully executing “any-where, anytime, any product” retailing.
But there’s another aspect to Retail 3.0:“showrooming,” which puts the consumer intotal control. As I see it, there are three typesof showrooming: in-store, local and global.Each requires high inventory accuracy thatcan be achieved only with RFID.
In-store showrooming occurs when theretailer uses a physical location to display itsproducts, typically keeping only one of eachitem on display, with the remainder of theinventory in the back. American Apparel usesa form of in-store showrooming. Hointer, anew store concept, is the ultimate in-storeshowroom. The West Coast clothing retailerrelies on technology to provide an innovativeshopping experience. For in-store show-rooming to work, a retailer must know what ithas in the store.
Local showrooming occurs when a con-sumer sees a product he or she likes at a store,then uses a mobile phone to search for that
product at nearby locations. The search is typ-ically prompted by one of two scenarios: Theitem is out of stock at the first store, or theconsumer is looking for a better deal.
Global showrooming is what most peoplethink of when they hear the term “show-rooming”: A consumer walks into a store tosee, touch, try on or examine a product, only to go online andorder it elsewhere,most likely for a costsavings. The consumeris no longer restrictedto a physical store orgeographic location;the product can be pur-chased anywhere.
Showrooming pres-ents a challenge for allretailers, whether theyhave a physical store, anonline store or both.Retailers must be ableto satisfy a consumer’sdemand immediately. Ifyou don’t have it, orcan’t ship it in a timelymanner, the consumer will go elsewhere. Theshopper has already showroomed the product.Where he or she purchases it is now secondary.
What, then, will separate the winners fromthe losers? An efficient supply chain and theknowledge of what items you have and whereyou have them. And you accomplish bothwith RFID.
Bill Hardgrave is the dean of Auburn University’sHarbert College of Business and the founder ofUniversity of Arkansas’ RFID Research Center.He will address other RFID adoption andbusiness case issues in this column. Send yourquestions to [email protected].
Retail 3.0RFID enables the trend toward consumer-driven showroom shopping.
By Bill Hardgrave
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41RFID Journal • September/October 2013
ashton’s view
ILLU
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According to conven-tionAl wisdom, we havefive senses—sight, sound,touch, taste and smell. Wealso experience sensa-tions, such as hot andcold, pain and the passageof time. It’s generallyagreed that it is not only
useful to sense more than one thing at a time,but it is better—even essential.
As we build the Internet of Things, we arecreating a digital nervous system, with a lot ofsensors providing cross-referencing, comple-mentary information and confirmation. Thesensor that gets the most attention is RFID, andfor good reason. RFID tags enable computers tosense identity, and knowing what something isalmost always is a prerequisite to being able touse other sensory information, such as tem-perature. I consider an RFID tag a “sensor”because it can detect something about thephysical world remotely and by proxy.
Having a lot of information is good.Showing a lot of information is bad. The first instinct of the typical sensor systemsdesigner is to create a monstrosity of an interface called a “dashboard”—a hard-to-read display with a dedicated chart or dial forevery single piece of information.
But our brains do not contain series of dialsshowing us the amplitude of sound wavescoming into our left and right ears, the spectral range of light entering each of oureyes, and values about what we are smelling,touching and tasting. We get one, seeminglycomplete and comprehensible representationof the world around us. Similarly, informationcollected from many sensors must convergeinto a single meaningful number, report,action or some combination of these three.
An example of how to display complex,
multisensor data was presented in September,at the annual Ubiquitous Computing(UbiComp) conference, in Zurich. MatthewKay, a Microsoft researcher, took the show bystorm with his insightful paper on a mundanetopic: how to improve household bathroomscales. These scales consist of a sensor and aninterface. Step on and get a single number thatindicates your weight. But weight fluctuatesthroughout the day.
If a scale could sense who was weighing in(not hard to do, unless several users are thesame weight) and days and times, it couldshow trending, like stock market charts do,making daily fluctuations less of a focus bygiving the user the information he or she reallyneeds: Am I getting closer to my target weight?
Kay concludes that adding more sensors toscales but providing clearer information can impact a user’s weight and health. Thisapproach, he notes, can be extended to otherbasic health sensors, such as blood pressurecuffs, glucose monitors and thermometers.
As we move deeper into the age of theInternet of Things, we need to learn how tomake more sense. The rule is simple, if coun-terintuitive: more inputs, fewer outputs.
Kevin Ashton was cofounder and executivedirector of the Auto-ID Center. He is currently ageneral manager at electronics maker Belkin.
Making More SenseWe must present all the data we collect in a meaningful way.
By Kevin Ashton
With the ePix Power Mapper, you are no longerworking in the dark. This meter is speciallydesigned to reveal null spots in the UHF radio fieldas well as the edges of the read field. The meteralso shows polarization effects, ground and waterabsorption and other problems that prevent energyfrom reaching the tag.
The meter relies on the power of radio waves, so it cannot give a false reading. And a newattenuator switch enables you to get close-rangemeasurements.
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