RAIN in Lower Hutt – your new experience

New Zealand businesses are invited to discover the latest in RFID (radio frequency identification) for themselves, courtesy of technology innovator Times-7. The Experience Centre in Lower Hutt is for anyone wanting to see how Ultra High Frequency (UHF) RFID works and how they might benefit from it as the technology becomes more pervasive.

Times-7 designs and manufactures UHF RFID antennas for the global markets, and provides system integration support for customers in New Zealand. Times-7 is a member of the global RAIN Alliance which promotes the adoption of the UHF standard, the fastest growing RFID technology. The company says demand continues to grow around the world for its wide range of reliable, high quality antennas. Its latest RAIN near-field technology operates over distances from a few centimetres to one metre, and is particularly suitable for use at point-of-sale in retail stores, in packing and dispatch environments, and for inventory management functions.

Equipped with Times-7 antennas, compatible tags and GS1 standard Electronic Product Code (for identification of products), the Experience Centre enables visitors to see how efficient RAIN enabled applications can be in a simulated retail store setting. Visitors to the centre can give voice commands to Google Assistant for the RAIN system to identify and display onscreen the whereabouts of individual tagged products on nearby shelves and, when a shopping basket of items is placed in a simulated check-out area, each item is instantly identified and listed onscreen. The Times-7 system can check out multiple products simultaneously, with very high accuracy.

“We want to provide opportunities for people to see for themselves the magic of this technology and to get some idea on what it might achieve in their own operational settings,” says Giuliana Gilges-Richards of Times-7. Giuliana welcomes anyone who wants to visit the experience centre at 29 Railway Ave, Lower Hutt.

Like GS1 New Zealand, Times-7 is a member of the New Zealand RFID Pathfinder Group, the independent non-profit organisation which was established to drive the adoption of UHF RFID technologies in New Zealand. A second RFID experience centre, similar to that of Times-7, is to be installed at GS1’s Auckland office, in Freemans Bay, for local businesses to visit later this year.