ADT significantly cuts retail RFID deployment costs with Sensormatic iREAD technology breakthrough
(Technology News, 08 Jan 2008 )
ADT radically improves the economics of in-store, item-level radio frequency identification (RFID) deployments, reducing reader requirements by up to 90 percent and capital costs by up to 60 percent. Using the EPCglobal Gen 2 standard in a new way, the new Sensormatic iREAD platform reduces both the complexity and cost of deploying RFID technology by eliminating the separate power, control and data distribution infrastructures that have until now been needed for in-store, item-level RFID. By consolidating these into one network, it offers substantial cost savings and improves the ease of installation in a shop floor environment, which will broaden the appeal of RFID to retailers considering the use of the technology to enhance their operations.
iREAD provides a flexible and scalable foundation for retailers to capitalize on the business benefits offered by RFID. It also reduces the relatively high number of readers, cables and antennas required by traditional RFID systems. The inherent modularity and simplicity of the platform means retailers can adapt its capabilities to almost any retail configuration—shelves, racks, tables and other display types.
In a typical medium sized retail store, an item-level RFID system would normally require around 100 readers to be installed and an initial hardware investment of around $435,000. With the iREAD platform, the system would only require around 10 readers to be installed—a 90 percent reduction in reader hardware. The initial investment falls to around $145,000—a reduction of more than 60 percent—with further cost savings to be realized during ongoing operation.
