Printable Battery Assisted RFID Tags

Filed in archive Retail , Retail on April 20, 2004

Editor's note: We are pleased to provide another "on-the-ground" report from guest blogger Atul Salgaonkar, Founder of RFID Solutions.

Many of us have this neat compartmentalized thinking:

• That all active tags are used in KHz range and are not intended for retail-related applications;


• That only passive tags can be EPC-compliant in the 900 MHZ frequency range;


• That the best case read distance is about 20 feet (3 meters).

Well, meet this new Israel-based start-up called Power Paper, which challenges this simple thinking.

At the recent RFID Journal Live event, this company was getting a lot of attention.

Their main claim to fame is their printable power source which allows them to make EPC compatible battery assisted tags that work in a UHF frequency space. Due to its design the read range can go from 26 feet (8 meters) to 40 feet (12 meters).

I asked their Sales Director, Avi Zamir, about the application and the shelf life of these tags. He said that battery shelf life can go to 4 years. Applications would include traditional supply chain as in retail as well as specific point applications (baggage or patient tagging). Exact costs were not available. Avi said that the ROI was better than that for passive tags.

Power Paper was recently named one of the year's 12 leading start-ups by Business 2.0 magazine (requires subscription).