With recent interest in Social Distancing & Contact Tracing solutions, customers are looking for solutions that leverage devices already in use. In response, AiRISTA will introduce a version of a tag as an Android app on a smart watch.
Smart devices are popping up everywhere, fueling an Internet of Things world. We have all heard about devices like kitchen appliances that were once “dark” coming online. AiRISTA is welcoming this momentum and adding to the community of smart things by embracing a concept called “soft tags”.
As the name implies, a soft tag embeds the firmware of an RTLS tag into a device. The initiative started with personal communications devices and hospital equipment. AiRISTA is extending this concept to smart watches as part of its SD&CT portfolio.
The new Android option gives employers another device in their arsenal when considering the right Social Distancing & Contact Tracing device for the various roles in their organization. In addition to AiRISTA’s wrist strap tag and the badge style tag, the Android option provides employers the flexibility to choose among devices and price points across the enterprise, from manufacturing to logistics, to the front office.
Wachter Inc., an integration and deployment partner of AiRISTA, sees a great fit with a variety of markets. “The multi-function nature of Android watches is making them ideal options for healthcare, education, and industrial customers,” according to Matt Tyler, Director of IoT at Wachter. “For nurses, the watch integrates functions like Nurse Call along with Social Distancing & Contact Tracing. And we see extended use cases in manufacturing and mining where BLE proximity can be used, for example, to associate employees with equipment for safety, compliance and utilization.”
Like AiRISTA tags, the Android smart watch can be configured from the AiRISTA portal to help customers dial-in the exact configurations for each environment.
- Contact distances and durations can be adjusted from the portal.
- Incidental contacts do not count against the employee.
- Short breaks during a sustained contact can be accumulated as a single contact
The RTLS market is experiencing a shift to simplified technology and broad adoption. Making it available to everyone in the enterprise is driving a “democratization” of RTLS. The “soft tag” will accelerate this trend by enabling devices already in use when considering RTLS and strategies for IoT generally.
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