Tag-ie at Low Temperatures

There has been some discussion about the low temperature performance of RFID readers. Typically a low temperature for the UK would be about -10 C although in the far north it could be much lower. The electronics themselves, i.e. the ‘chips’ are not normally a limiting factor, and the same chips in military specification are rated normally at -55 C. The same applies to most of the other components in a  Tag-ie Reader with the exception of the battery and the display.

LCD displays have a very low power consumption and are ideal for battery powered equipment, but they do suffer at temperatures below 0 C. There are two common effects, the display becomes unreadable, i.e. goes black, or it becomes slow.

We have tested typical production Tag-ie Reader units and at  -13C the display is more or less normal, but slow, i.e. a response time of about 1 second. In practice this is not normally a problem and the unit is completely useable.

The battery can be the other problematic area. We use Li-Ion batteries in Tag-ie Readers which have a specified low temperature limit of -20 C. However, performance does fall off long before that as being a chemical process, in general, the colder the slower the reaction, and capacity suffers. Our tests indicate however that the -13 C figure also holds true for the battery, albeit with slight lower capacity.

Tag-ie products conform to ISO11784/5 and are water and drop resistant. CE meets EN50082-1 and EN50022, and comply with EC 21/2004.  All of our Tag-ie products are designed, manufactured and supported in the UK.

Tag-ie sheep is a registered trademark