A Focus on Open Standards

RF Code takes an open approach to developing and delivering its real time asset management and wire-free environmental solutions. Among other things, this open approach involves:

  • Providing open APIs into our solutions at the hardware, middleware and application layers

  • Supporting open technology standards such as SNMP, OPC, JMX and many others

  • Integrating with mainstream applications through such standards as XML, JSON, Web APIs among others.

This protects a customer’s current IT investments while expanding the power and capability of those investments by adding RF Code-generated asset management and/or environmental data.

RF Code is committed to standards that make sense from a customer perspective. Sometimes standards emerge that while serving a specific purpose, do not meet the needs of our customers. ISO 18000-7 (Dash-7) is an example. RF Code provides a number of advantages of particular importance to the customers we serve. These include:

  • Greater security. Unlike Dash-7 solutions, RF Code transmissions are unidirectional, from tag-to-reader-to-software, and transmit only tag ID and status payloads (e.g., motion, tamper, temperature, low battery). All meaningful, sensitive asset information resides within the secure software database, not in the air or on the tag. There’s no way for even “harmless” tag ID information to be intercepted and read, unlike in a bi-directional solution based on Dash-7.

  • Scalability. With RF Code, one reader can manage thousands of tags simultaneously. Dash-7 runs into collision complexities with its interrogate and listen format.

  • Longer tag life. RF Code tags beacon every 10 seconds and typically last up to 7 years. Dash-7 tags that beacon once per minute have a tag life of only 4 years or less. This is due to the different protocols RF Code uses versus Dash-7.

  • Design integrity. The ISO 18000-7 standard only defines an RFID air protocol, not the product design, quality and reliability, tag form factors, durability, operating environment, regulatory or safety compliance. RF Code tags and readers meet a number of customer-required specifications around all these issues. RF Code solutions have been field tested and operational for over 10 years.

  • Lower cost. RF Code solutions are typically much more affordable, often as much as 50% less expensive.

  • Ability to function in the presence of RF interference. RF Code readers perform better in noisy RF environments due to the modulation schemes and simpler protocols employed for encoded radio transmissions.

There are certain DoD and Supply Chain Management scenarios where Dash-7 compliance is an appropriate choice. When the customer must have the ability to write vital traceability and historical data onto the tag for use upstream, it becomes necessary to pay for the expensive Dash-7 interrogators and the bi-directional read/write tags. It makes good sense for customers to understand where and when such a solution is called for.  If the situation only requires "license plate" type RFID transmissions (periodic Tag ID and status), there is no reason to deploy Dash-7 compliant systems when there are far more economical solutions available.