Archive for category: Rfidi Blog

Transcends is proud to announce that the RIFIDI® 3.3 public release is supported by market research we conducted with partners, clients and vendors, ensuring we continue to play a key role in “Connecting the Internet of Things (IoT) with People”. A key feature of the release is the Enterprise Rifidi® Management Dashboard that enables monitoring of multiple servers and sensors throughout the enterprise, providing actionable data to managers in real time.

Making the Case to Internal Clients and to External Customers

Transcends recently conducted market research interviews with partners, clients, vendors and other key players in the RFID/IoT community. We were happy to learn the community values our long term commitment, responsiveness, knowledge, Rifidi’s quality, and Transcends’ high level of customer service. We also identified areas where you want more help from us, primarily in educating end users and senior executives about the potential of RFID. Interviewees asked for improved marketing to help nontechnical people visualize the end-to-end applicability of Rifidi and appreciate more sophisticated use cases.

The following new section of our newsletter is designed to address this need and help nontechnical executives understand the Rifidi use case. Marketing upgrades to our web site will be next. Please let us know what you think, and share your examples with us so we can continue to spread the word for the RFID community.

Real Service, Real Solutions

Industrial Client Gains Competitive Advantage from Higher Productivity and Control of Inventory Costs

Increasing the level of process automation in industrial settings often provides a competitive advantage. More automation increases productivity, workflow throughput, quality and reliability, while reducing labor and inventory costs. Transcends’ Rifidi platform allows real-time visibility into your asset flow on an individual item level. Easy integration of that data with your ERP system (on premise or in the cloud) allows managers to access assets throughout your enterprise, ultimately increasing customer satisfaction. Rifidi enabled an apparel rental company to establish a new warehouse from the ground up within just a few months. A high level of process automation keeps costs low, with increased productivity and full visibility into item-level inventory at each step of the workflow.

Retail Clients Go Beyond Basic Inventory Tracking to Theft Warnings and Targeted Advertising

Regular brick-and-mortar stores struggle to achieve the real-time inventory accuracy consumers enjoy with online websites, yet retailers need such accuracy to successfully implement omni-channel strategies. While regular RFID technology can increase inventory visibility on the sales floor, Transcends’ Rifidi enables retailers to turn basic inventory data into smart data that triggers actionable business events. The Rifidi platform allows smart shelf solutions to alert sales clerks about stock out situations and possible thefts, allows marketing applications to deliver context-sensitive advertisements, informs store management about consumer and workforce behavior, and creates a more personalized shopping experience with smart mirrors. Using Rifidi to take advantage of local intelligence on the sales floor increases sales and improves customer satisfaction.
New features in the RIFIDI® Edge Server release include the following.

• Enterprise Rifidi Management Dashboard
• Integration with ThingWorx® Platform (including SDK example application) Note: ThingWorx™, a PTC (Nasdaq: PTC) business, provides the first platform designed to efficiently build and run the applications of today’s connected world.
• Extended Rifidi application management via Rest
• Validated Rifidi Edge on Galileo (Intel ) device
• Validated Rifidi Edge on Raspberry Pi 2 (ARM)
• Support for Ubuntu Snappy Core on Raspberry PI  (Internet of Things Operating System)
• SDK – ThingWorx/Rifidi integration sample application
• A few key bug fixes
• Backward compatibility with RIFIDI 1.3 and 2.x , 3.x applications & solutions
• Full RIFIDI 3.3 release notes

Accelerate your IoT adoption with RIFIDI®. Connect your RFID reader and sensor network. Analyze you sensor information in real-time and over time. Optimize your business processes. Integrate with the enterprise. Differentiate your products, solutions and organization. By utilizing the Power of RIFIDI®, the possibilities are boundless across many verticals (retail, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, recreational) from global enterprises to local small and medium sized businesses.

Transcends constantly improves, updates and enhances our robust, open source Rifidi product to better meet users’ needs. Possible features for our next release, based on feedback from clients, community, projects, forums, collaborations and partnerships, include the following.

• Floor plan/Google Map sensor management dashboard
• Integration with visualizations/dashboards/analytic tools
• Pure configurable Rifidi Apps (no coding required)
• Rifidi App marketplace
• Rifidi App provisioning enabled via OSGi P2 infrastructure
• Support for other Java IDEs such as NetBeans
• Framework upgrades/additions (Spring, Maven and Provisioning)
• Further security integration
• Additional features based on suggestions from community

Highlights of the RIFIDI® Edge Server Release:

• Sensor and Application Management –  Extended Rifidi API features
• Platform upgrade and additions for developers/architects (Restlet 2.3.1 – Restful services)
• Tag Encoding  – Added ability to encode user memory, EPC, passwords
• LLRP updates – Get Run-time Reader and ROSpec Configuration ,
• RESTful performance enhancements
• SDK – Optimized Rifidi RSSI service
• Few key bug fixes
• Backward compatibility with RIFIDI 1.3 and 2.x , 3.x applications & solutions
• Full RIFIDI 3.2 release notes

Candidate features for next release (based on clients, community, projects, forums, collaboration,  partnerships)

• Floor plan/Google Map sensor management dashboard
• Integration with visualizations/dashboards/analytic Tools
• Rifidi application designer interface
• Pure configurable Rifidi Apps (No Coding required)
• Rifidi App marketplace
• Rifidi App provisioning enabled via OSGi P2 infrastructure
• Out of the box integration/support for IoT partner products
• Support for other Java IDEs such as NetBeans
• Framework upgrades/additions (Spring, Maven and Provisioning)
• Further security integration
• Additional features based on suggestions from community

Author: Brian P Pause – Co-founder of Transcends and Rifidi

The scope of the Internet of Things ecosystem is rapidly evolving to be comprised of Machine to Machine (M2M) communication, Smart Devices, Wearables, Sensors/RFID, BigData/Analytics/Visualizations and low cost computing (embedded and Cloud). This is all well and good but what does this mean in terms of the real value? There have been many articles as of late discussing the market size and revenue potential but in my opinion value goes beyond a quantifiable amount (such as dollars and size)

The noun form of value is defined as “the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something. “

To understand real value using this definition one needs to take the time to understand why would people (organization, customer, employee, friend) care to get to the real value of IoT?

In conversations I have participated in and research I have performed the real value appears to align these categories

• The New Business Model Opportunities
• The potential realized productivity and efficiency gains
• The increased quality of life
• The new insights into data driven by analytics

Examples of these can be seen by current and near term happenings in the market around IoT.

Wearables being used by people to monitor ones health and day to day activities soon integrating with the retail medical facilities being setup at places like Walmart.

Automation of factories and workflows previously requiring manual labor and human intervention driving productivity and efficiency .

Sensor data such as wifi, beacons, rfid, mobile devices being used by retailers to better understand consumer behavior through analytics tools like Tableau and ClickView (to name a few).

And not to far completely new business models such as drones delivering orders from Amazon or new business for the matter when the complete business/organization is developed and enabled through the use of IoT

Yes the ultimate desired outcome is growing market share and revenue. But ultimately taking the time to understand the real value in IoT will ensure you realize the near and long term potential.

recently attended the RFID Journal Live 2014 event in Orlando, FL and one messaging shift I observed this year was how the RFID industry was starting to align themselves with the Internet of Things (IoT).

I figured it would be a good idea to provide a framework for how we at Transcends perceive IoT from a maturity model perspective and how the Rifidi platform can help accelerate one’s adoption.

Basically the model steps one through how organizations can benchmark where they currently stand across their products and services and think through a roadmap on how to continue to grow and mature.

The model starts with the concept of devices/machines/things are connected with the ability to communicate. Next these machines are capable of being serviced via these connections. As machines are serviceable one can now move into the space of analyzing the data to provide business insights and predictions. These data streams can be leveraged to optimize existing business processes and provide a foundation for new use cases. Finally organizations can be in the position to differentiate products and services providing a competitive advantage and new business models

How does the Rifidi platform fit and add value.

Simply put, RIFIDI®  connects your RFID reader and sensor network, Analyzing sensor information real-time and over time, Optimizing business processes and Integrating with the enterprise. Ultimately, Differentiating your products, solutions and organization.

• Connected: Rifidi connects many different RFID readers out of the box, and allows to extend connectivity to any sensors utilizing the sensor API.
• Serviceable – Rifidi also provides the required infrastructure for maintaining connectivity, custom define connectivity and dynamically configure based on business and infrastructure events.
• Intelligence: Rifidi utilizes a rules engine to turn sensor data into business events integration with your Big Data and Analytics Strategy
• Optimized: Rifidi integrates with business processes and existing systems in various ways: Cloud, Databases, WebServices, JMS etc.
• Differentiated: A Rifidi system offers many out-of-the box components accelerating 80% of your solution but is also highly customizable via Rifidi SDK using technology standards to bridge the gap on the remaining 20%.

In summary, with the growing number of RFID devices and sensors in the world the types of solutions and applications are boundless and only limited by your imagination.  The real question at hand now is IF your Things could Talk what would you want them to Say?

We look forward to continue working with the RFID community to bring innovative solutions to market and continue to evolve the RIFIDI platform roadmap as IoT  grows further and matures.

Note : Concepts for IoT Maturity Model were referenced from  Maturity Model and Value Curve for M2M and IOT

Transcends is currently developing RIFIDI® Edge 3.0 along with Product and Solutions Updates based on community, customer and partner feedback.

Target Release: Winter 2014

RIFIDI® Edge 3.0 Candidate Features: (Click here to nominate features and provide feedback on the RIFIDI roadmap )

• Core Framework Upgrades (Spring 4.0 – Application Framework, Esper 4.1 – Event Processing Engine, Equinox Kepler – OSGI Container)
• Advanced Read Zone Relationships
• Extended Read Zone Filtering  (through configuration) – RSSI, Extended Tag Attributes, Reader Attributes, Customer Parameters
• Dynamic Reader Configuration – Run-time Updates to Reader Configurations based on Business and Infrastructure Events
• Automatic Fail-over (Primary/Secondary Nodes)
• Redhat/Centos Packaging

 Current Products and Solutoins

• RIFIDI Platform – Rifidi Edge Server
• Appliance – RIFIDI Pi Embedded Appliance (Retail – $595 USD)
• Appliance – RIFIDI Box Appliance (Retail – $1,680 USD)
• Solutions –  Smart Sensor UHF Gen2  (From $995 – $1,195 USD)
• Business Solutions – Asset Tracking, Inventory Management, Inventory Control w/ Handheld User Interface – Pricing Available on Product Website
• Transcends Product and Feature Comparison Matrix – Powered by RIFIDI- PDF Format

Upcoming Product & Solutions Offerings: Additional Embedded Offerings, RIFIDI Edge 3.0 and Business Solutions in the Cloud (SaaS)
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White Paper & Blog History

• June 2013 – The Transcends Products & Solutions are Easy as 1-2-3
• May 2013 – RFID Solutions – News Ways of Providing Value to Business and Consumers
• March 2013 –RIFIDI Product Roadmap – The New Internet = People + Things = Internet Ecosystem
• November 2012 – RIFIDIi 2.0 Major Release – Connecting the Inernet of Things with People
• May 2012 – Leverage Transcends Global Maketplace
• September 2011  – RFID, Recession, Globalization are crossing roads – With Challenges are Opportunuities
• May 2011 – RIFIDI Edge Sever Scalability and Performance Benchmarks
• December 2010 – Definition of a RFID Edge Server

Thank you for all the contributions and support.  We look forward to continue to work with the RFID Community to bring Innovative and High Business Value Solutions to the marketplace.

Transcends Product Development Team