Phidget RFID

Ten Phidget RFID boards arrived today. The Phidgets are an extremely cheap prototyping platform for simple RFID. They are low power, with a maximum read range of about 8 centimetres, so perfect for quick interaction prototyping of near-field applications. We’re planning to build some table based applications, and to use them in student projects. The only downside is the lack of anticollision: multiple tags can’t be in the vicinity of the reader at once.

The boards plug in via USB to a host computer (can be used with USB hubs to create massive arrays of readers). They have drivers for Windows, Linux and OS X, plus libraries and sample applications for Visual Basic, C, C++, Flash, .Net, Java etc.

With the readers came a huge variety of low-frequency tags, many of which are interesting from a design perspective. The CD/DVD tag, the tough polycarbonate buttons, and the very pedagogic clear plastic tags.

[tags]RFID, Phidgets, prototyping, electronics, physical computing [/tags]

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