RFID wristbands

How RFID Works?

RFID works a bit like a radar. An signal is sent from the RFID reader, it propagates and reaches the RFID chip. The RFID chip resonates in a unique frequency and “reflects” the signal back. The signal reflected from the RFID chip is received on the RFID reader and is decoded.
Passive RFID chips have no internal energy source like a battery and are restricted to close distance interaction.
Active RFID chips have an internal energy source like a battery which allows amplification of the signal making it possible to increase the distance between the RFID reader and the RFUD chip.

Applications

Amusement parks

Administering a wristband on a visitor’s wrist at amusement and theme parks makes it easy to implement admission control. RFID wristbands can trigger an entrance barrier if the person standing in front of it is eligible to enter a restricted area.  This can save man power and allow automation in the admission process.
Statistics show that over 20% of families that visit amusements parks loose one of their children in the park. Not so difficult to imagine because there are so many attractions and distractions for the young ones. The old fashion way was writing on a paper wristband, contact details, but space was limited and sometimes information was not readable. RFID wristbands solve this problem by safely storing the information in the RFID IC chip. Besides that, RFID IC chips make it possible to find the exact location of the lost child if readers are scattered around the park.

Another fantastic feature implemented with RFID enabled wristbands is cashless payments. When entering the park visitors can charge their wristbands with funds. At points in the amusement park where earlier payment was made with cash, payment can be achieved by scanning the RFID enabled wristbands, communicating to the database the amount to be deducted from the charged credit. Statistics have sown that people tend to spend more money when they don’t need to pay with cash thus increasing turnover to the amusement park.

Concerts and Festivals

Another branch in the entertainment sector that RFID wristbands for events can bring great benefits is. Festivals and concerts. At the entrance to the venue, wristbands are mounted on the wrists of all groups of people involved in the event. The RFID IC chips can send information to the RFID readers on who is a spectator, a crew member, a back-stage worker etc. this can allow automatic admission control to privileged people or alternatively reduce the chance for human error when humans control the gates.

Using scattered readers to gather information on the locations of the spectators can contribute to safety by triggering a density alarm indicating that number of spectators has passed a certain limit in a particular area thus avoiding a stampede.

When using RFID wristbands at festivals, organizers can have a cashless event. Many times, people lose their cash in the hustle and bustle of an even like a concert or a festival. An RFID wristband at concerts that is secured well on the wrist can solve this problem. Gusts can charge their wristbands with cash during admittance and funds will be reduced as the wristbands are scanned at the points of sale.

In the old days tokens or vouchers were used in festivals and concerts to control merchandise and food sales during the events. This way the event organizers could charges a portent of the turnover from the goods soled rather than a fixed rate. Using RFID wristbands allows to have an event with no cash and control over the turnover.

Earlier in time, event organizers used limited space on admission wristbands for advertising and promotion. Now by getting participants approval  organizers can take advantage of scanned tweets and likes when a person moves in to a certain area while wearing an RFID wristband. It is possible to automate the process of following where people are and see their routes directly social media sites like Facebook.

By using RFID wristbands information can be gathered on patterns and behaviors of participants which will allow better planning for future events.
And one more thing….through the years, festival organizers have experience attempts to counterfeit their admission wristbands by revers production of similar copied wristbands. It was not always easy for the people standing at the gates to spot counterfeiting and there were some events that had great losses due to this problem. RFID enabled wristbands minimize counterfeiting. Fraudsters need to counterfeit the pattern of the wristbands as well as the content of the RFID IC chips.

Hospitality

Hotels, vacation resorts, cruise ships operators want their guest to feel at home, excessive control may lead guests to unpleasant feelings. RFID wristbands make it possible to seemingly control guest’s activities without asking them to show their wristbands like in the old days.

Consumption allowances can be granted and admission to areas like swimming pool, sauna, fitness-room etc. can be controlled. With RFID wristbands for hotels, doors may be opened. This way keys or cards are not lost or forgotten and locked-in the room.

When checking out from the hotel a special alarm can be trigged that the guest needs to return the wristband.
Statistics are always good to have for future planning and that is just what using RFID wristbands can provide operators in the hospitality branch.

Medical

Using wristbands to identify patients in hospitals is an old practice. On admission, a wristband was mounted on the patients and was kept on the wrists until the patients were discharged. In the begging it was different coloured wristbands, then came wristbands with scannable barcodes and now the latest improvement is RFID wristbands for patients.

RFID wristbands in the medical sector are used for easily identifying patients, storing vital information on the patients and have instant access to the information and finding the exact where about of the patients.

In the healthcare industry, real time data is a big advantage making it easier to make quick decisions. Implementation of RFID wristbands reduces the chance for human error by avoiding paper lists and the ability to update information directly to a database.

RFID wristbands are ideal for triggering an alarm when patients attempt to leave through a door. This way patients can feel they are not locked in but still there is control over their motions. This practice is particularly helpful with patients suffering from dementia disease like Alzheimer.

Smart phones and RFID

Modern smartphones are equipped with NFC, which is a particular RFID. Currently NFC on smart phones is restricted to 13.56 MHz. Android devices and iPhones can function as an RFID tag and as an RFID reader allowing a bidirectional exchange between two smart phones or scanning of an RFID IC chip within the frequency range.
It is not difficult to find a reasonably priced smartphone with NFC communication features, even in poorer countries. Smart phones can function as a NFC RFID scanner bringing down operation costs when implementing RFID wristbands.

Choosing an RFID wristband chip

RFID wristbands should be comfortable to wear and not bulky. Technology allows us to compress into a small RFID amazing functions but in the end the chip has weight and the antenna many times requires minimum dimensions for effective results.

We supply waterproof RFID wristbands made of Tyvek paper, Vinyl plastic, textile fabric and silicone rubber. Each having its own advantage according to the application.

Tyvek paper RFID wristbands have an inlay which is metallic print. These are disposable wristbands, very cheap and not so durable.

Plastic Vinyl RFID wristbands are laminated allowing to incapsulate a chip within the laminated layers.

Textile RFID wristbands can have a slider added on or the chip can be embedded within two layers of textile.

Silicone RFID wristbands have the chip totally covered in silicone. The chip is inserted while casting the silicone.

RFID chips are sorted by:

Active or passive - internal energy source.
Frequency class - LF, HF, UHF.
Memory capacity – in bytes
Communication protocol – encoding and decoding standard.
Tolerance – temperature, humidity, pressure.
Manufacturer

125 kHz. and 134.3 kHz. classified as passive LF (Low Frequency) RFID IC chips - operation range  maximum 30 cm typically for RFID wristbands with IC chip about 10 cm.
13.56 MHz. classified as passive HF (High Frequency) RFID IC chips – operation range maximum  1.5 meters, typically for RFID wristbands with IC chip about 1 meter
860 - 960 MHz. classified as passive UHF (Ultra High Frequency) RFID IC chips – operation range over 1.5 meter (with a minimum read distance of over 1 meter.
RFID is a dynamic and fast-growing industry. Range performance is constantly be improved with new generation of RFID chips entering the market.
LF Low frequency - 125KHz.
HF High frequency -  13.56MHz.
UHF Ultra high frequency- 915MHz.

Security

RFID IC chips need to be uniquely identified by the RDIF reader. To avoid unwanted tampering or copying of the information coding is required. Imagine a situation where an RFID wristband with an IC chip is unwantedly scanned and the information on the chip is retrieved by untrusted sources. It is not so difficult to emulate an RFID IC chip once the information on the chip is cracked and this may lead to abuse and damages.

It is important to understand how secure are the RFID wristbands and what are the weak points, before making a decision which RFID should be used.

Price

As technology advances RFID chips for textile wristbands are becoming more affordable and are integrated onto different types of wristbands.

There are original RFID IC chips manufacturers and there are compatible RFID IC chips manufacturers. Original RFID wristbands price is many times more expensive than compatible ones. Our job is to present the benefit-cost to our customers and make sure that when we offer a solution with compatible cheap RFID wristbands, they will function properly despite the low price.

Choosing RFID wristbands is more complicated than it seems. Let us help you find the way for best results.

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