Impinj uses cookies to improve your user experience on our website. Cookies enable you to use certain features, sharing functionality, and to tailor messages to your interests (on our site and others). They also help us understand how our site is being used. By continuing to use our site, you consent to use our cookies in accordance with our privacy policy.
RFID uses radio waves to identify and track objects. RFID is a generic term that encompasses different frequencies and standards, including both NFC and RAIN.
What is RFID?
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a form of wireless communication that uses radio waves to identify and find objects. RFID is a generic term that encompasses different frequencies and standards, including both NFC and RAIN — two technologies supported by industry alliances. In simple terms, all RFID systems operate on the same principle: An RFID tag stores information that can be read wirelessly by an RFID reader.
RAIN RFID is a passive, battery-free wireless technology that connects billions of everyday items to the internet. RAIN is a name that brands passive UHF RFID products and technologies that adhere to global standards. RAIN RFID systems enable businesses and consumers to identify, locate, authenticate, and engage with every item that’s tagged with a RAIN RFID tag, providing rich, real-time data and insight. RAIN RFID is used in a wide variety of applications, including inventory management, asset tracking, and shipment verification.
RAIN is the fastest growing segment of the RFID market and uses a single, global standard: UHF Gen 2 (ISO/IEC 18000-63). RAIN has connected billions items to date. By providing internet connectivity to, and real-time information about, everyday items such as apparel, medical supplies, automobile parts, food, and more, RAIN RFID enables the true Internet of Things.
RAIN RFID can connect everything in your everyday life — from socks to strawberries to shipping pallets. It digitizes the physical world. With RAIN RFID, a system can automatically sense what is happening, share related data, and respond. RAIN RFID provides the ability to:
Uniquely identify individual items beyond just their product type
Identify and locate items without direct line-of-sight
Identify many items quickly (up to 1,000 items per second)
Read items within a range of between a few centimeters to several meters
RAIN RFID can identify and locate up to 1,000 items per second without direct line-of-sight.
1,000
ITEMS PER SECOND
Why use RAIN RFID?
RAIN RFID has the capacity to greatly enhance people’s lives while revolutionizing the way companies do business. It is a flexible, low-cost solution, making it appealing to a wide range of industries — from retail to healthcare, manufacturing to hospitality.
RAIN RFID can tell you what an object is, where it is, and even its condition. With this information, businesses around the world are able to increase sales, drive operational efficiencies, and improve customer experience. Solutions range from supply chain management to asset tracking to authentication of frequently counterfeited pharmaceuticals. Applications are limited only by your imagination.
Impinj is a leading provider and pioneer of RAIN RFID. We spearheaded development of the RAIN radio standard, lobbied governments to allocate frequency spectrum, and co-founded the RAIN Alliance.
The Impinj platform uses RAIN RFID to empower people around the world to connect, identify, locate, and authenticate billions of individual items — and we’re just getting started. We have enabled over 85 billion items to connect to the Internet of Things, in a wide range of industries. We’re inventing ways to bring more things online. If it’s a thing, Impinj will connect it.
Organizations mostly use RAIN RFID to track, locate, authenticate, and secure items or containers as they move through supply chains, warehouses, retail stores, and even hospitals. Nearly every day, we hear of new ways people are deploying RAIN RFID solutions to improve their business. Here are some common uses:
Automating inventory and asset tracking in healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and many other business sectors
Identifying the source of products, enabling intelligent recalls of defective or dangerous items, such as tainted foods, defective toys, or expired medication
Preventing the use of counterfeit products in the supply chain
Enabling omnichannel fulfillment, so businesses can meet changing consumer demands and expectations
Providing visibility into the supply chain, yielding more efficient distribution channels and reduced business costs
Reducing business losses due to theft or inaccurate accounting of goods
What is the Impinj platform?
The Impinj platform lays a foundation for the development of IoT solutions, extending the internet’s reach from the cloud, through edge connectivity devices, all the way to physical items. Our broad partner ecosystem uses our platform's best-in-market products, capabilities, and technology to deliver whole products that address business needs. Easy to deploy and use, our platform delivers performance unequaled by mix-and-match approaches, built to wirelessly connect everyday items to identify, locate, and protect them.
