The Intelleflex CMR-6100 is a multiprotocol ISO/IEC 18000-6:2010 and EPC Class 1 Generation 2 RFID Reader that includes integrated GPRS and SMS Cellular Data Capabilities as well as GPS location information. Before now, if you required GPRS and GPS capabilities with a fixed position RFID reader, you had to piece together different equipment. The CMR-6100 has all of these technologies integrated together in one unit.

By combining this, the RFID reader is well suited for remote, unattended operation at locations where network access is not available or not allowed. This gives solution provides the ability to access RFID data from locations where data capture was not previously possible. Since GPS location information is also available, the RFID reader can even be mobile.

Peter Mehring, CEO of Intelleflex, visited The RFID Network in the studio and talked about new reader and cloud-based services. We also had an opportunity to put the cellular RFID reader and cloud services to the test.

The ThingMagic Mercury6 (M6) is an enterprise-class, 4-port, EPCglobal Gen2 (ISO 18000-6C) multiprotocol RFID reader based on the Best-In-Class M6e embedded RFID reader module. The M6 now supports EPCglobal Low-Level Reader Protocol (LLRP), however, our team was intrigued by the common programming interface across ThingMagic's entire portfolio of readers, a capability we've not seen with any other RFID reader manufacturer. In this edition of The RFID Network, we put the ThingMagic M6 to the test.

During the past 18 months, our team has helped a number of companies with people tracking, personnel tracking, and employee tracking, including a North American retail store tracking 40,000+ employees in 3,000+ locations. We have tested over a dozen RFID badge tags, six different stationary RFID readers, and four different RFID handheld readers. What we found is that traditional passive RFID badge tags can read up to about 15 feet away, but when you put them close to your body, the read range is not only reduced, but in some situations the tag can't be read at all.

CSL claims that their new Class 1 Generation 2 battery assisted passive (BAP) RFID badge tag can be read up to 16 feet away in your pocket. In this edition of the RFID Network, our team puts the CSL BAP RFID badge tags to the test.