[su_spoiler title="Practical read range / performance" class="my-custom-spoiler" style="fancy" icon="arrow"]

Passive RFID and NFC chips are batteryless, magnetically coupled devices that power themselves and communicate data over a shared magnetic field that the reader generates. This means their effective read range and performance depends entirely on how well the antenna coils of both the chip and reader couple with each other. This typically means the shape, size, and orientation of both antennas must be complimentary.

Unfortunately, most reader devices, including NFC enabled smartphones, typically have antennas designed with thin PCB traces made into blocky rectangular shapes that lay along a flat plane. These antenna designs are great for coupling with and reading large flat labels and access cards which also share this antenna shape, but they have a hard time coupling to the very small cylindrical antenna coil inside our x-series chip implants. Most mobile phones and reader devices do have "sweet spots" that must be located and used each time to get consistent results. You should not expect your USB reader or NFC enabled mobile device to achieve the same read range with our x-series chips that you normally get with an NFC label, sticker, or card.

Locating the "sweet spot"

Not only is the correct location of a sweet spot necessary to find, but also the correct orientation. The best performance is achieved when the x-series lays across the antenna pathway of the reader antenna coil so the length of the x-series chip implant is perpendicular to the reader antenna coil. To help find an effective location and orienation to get the best read performance for your x-series chip implant, we created the X Field Detector. This diagnostic device mimics the cylidrical x-series antenna coil winding and shows you the best possible location and rotation/orientation for holding your x-series transponder up to any reader by lighting up when the field coupling is strong enough to power the LED inside. Watch this video to understand how to use it.

[su_youtube url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h4nSPHWzL4" width="520" height="300"]

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